The iconic Audi 100 that former Indian cricketer Ravi Shashtri won at the 1985 Benson and Hedges World Championship of Cricket has been extensively restored by the Super Car Club Garage (SCCG). The keys of the restored vehicle were handed over to Shastri by Gautam Singhania, owner of SCCG and the chairman and managing director of Raymond Group, at a special event on Friday.
- Ravi Shastri won the Audi 100 in 1985
- Was one of the first Audis to come to India
- Restored car includes former cricketer’s signature on the fenders
Prized possession
Perhaps one of India’s most iconic Audis, the gold Audi 100 was awarded to Ravi Shastri in Australia when he was conferred the Player of the Tournament title after India’s victory over Pakistan in the final. “This [the Audi 100] is special in many ways, it is one of the first Audis to ever come into India,” the former India coach said.
He added that the then Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, had waived all the import duties enabling Shastri to bring the car in India. “It is definitely a car that made me, my team, and the whole country proud,” he added. In a tweet, Shastri called the Audi 100 a “national asset”.
At the event, Shastri also narrated an incident where he was too scared to drive the car back to his home in Mumbai’s Mahim area from the docks where it had arrived. “There were about 10,000 people at the docks just to see the car. I was so nervous to drive it that I asked one of the Audi officials to drive it home for me,” he said.
Shastri used the car for a long time until sourcing the parts for it became difficult. The car was then largely sitting idle for nearly 10 years before Gautam Singhania and the Super Car Club Garage decided to bring it back to life.
Audi 100: the restoration
The car has been restored to its original state with the same paint and interior upholstery. It took the SCCG a little under a year to completely restore the Audi 100. “When the car got here, it was not working in any respect,” Singhania said. The restoration team had to completely strip the car and rebuild it from scratch.
Because Audi 100 isn’t a very common car, sourcing parts was a challenge. All the parts used on the car are original, and had to be sourced from different countries. One of the restorers of the car said that sourcing the engine parts was most difficult. “However, with painstaking efforts, we were able to get the car back on the road,” Singhania said.
The original colour code was procured from the manufacturer, while the engine, wiring and the air conditioning were all worked on at the SCCG. On seeing the restored car, Shastri exclaimed, “This looks like the car I won!”
The only changes that SCCG has done to the Audi is the inclusion of the former cricketer’s signatures on the fenders and new wheels.
Audi 100 and Audi A6
Audi introduced the 100 as a midsize sedan in 1968. Based on the C1 platform, the name was derived from the power output of 100hp that it produced. The 100 series lasted for four generations till 1993 before it was renamed to A6 under Audi’s new naming scheme. The model owned by Ravi Shastri is the third-generation version of the 100. While the exact technical details of his car are unknown, it sports a five-cylinder engine and a 4-speed automatic transmission.
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