Before they set off, a colourful ceremony for the rally participants was held at the Services Club. The rally has been jointly organised by the Tourism Corporation of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (TCK-P), Classic Land Rover, the Vintage Classic Car Club of Pakistan (VCCP) and the Heritage Motoring Club of Pakistan.
K-P Minister for Forest and Environment Ishtiaq Urmar inaugurated the classic cars show at the Services Club and later saw off the participants as they set off on their long journey. Tourism Secretary Kamran Rehman, Classic Land Rover CEO Asim Durrani, and a large number of spectators were present.
Urmar said that organising the vintage cars show offers the residents of the city a great opportunity to appreciate these machines apart from sending a positive message to the world about the peaceful environment in the province.
Furthermore, he said that launching the 10th annual rally from the Khyber Tribal District in the erstwhile federally administered tribal areas (Fata) was aimed at highlighting the scenic places in these areas and to lure more tourists to these sites. All the past nine annual rallies had commenced from Karachi and had concluded in Peshawar.
The rally had originally started on Saturday from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Torkham. Vintage classic cars from across the country, including from Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad had arrived at the army cantonment in Landi Kotal and formally kicked off the rally from the mess of the Khyber Rifles.
The classic cars in the caravan includes a 1960’s Ford Thunder Bird, a 1967 Austin Mini, a 1939 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith, a 1964 Ford Mustang, a 1957 Humber Hawk, a Mercedes 108S, a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette, a 1957 Willy’s Jeep, a number of Volkswagen Foxy’s, Peugeot, MG Grand, Cadillac, Wranglings. Some of the more modern, exotic cars participating in the rally included Hummer and Ferrari.
Earlier, the owner of a vintage Chevrolet, Dr Shahzad said that he has owned the 1959 model for the past 20 years. Narrating the tale of the car, he said that he found it lying in poor condition.
However, with a lot of care and persistence, he gradually restored it to its former glory one section at a time.
The vintage car rally will travel to Islamabad from Peshawar before continuing south to Lahore, Bahawalpur and Gumbat before making its way to Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum in Karachi. Land Rover CEO Asim Durrani said that he, along with some friends had started the rally with just a few cars over a decade ago. It grew every year and this year it had swelled to 60 cars.
The youngsters attended the car show said that they were happy to see such old vehicles and amazed at how such old vehicles have been maintained in such immaculate condition and how much work and effort it must have gone into it.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 25th, 2019.
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