| QMARRI
- The Last One Left by Niaz Ali from Downunder |
It is a fact that motorsport in India started in Calcutta,
and the first Motor sports club was the 'Calcutta Motor Sports
Club', As early as 1949 a certain group of Englishmen raced
home made Sports cars around disused airstrips around calcutta,
this was long before my time so my stories are based on tales
told to me by my dad (who himself raced a front wheel drive
Citroen in those days), and the greates of Indian motorsport,
such as Kinny Lal, Mr Ferozshah, Mr Suresh Kumar, not forgetting
Tarapoda Shah, who to the best of my knowledge is the only
Indian to have raced at the famous 'ILes of man' TT races.
 The
racing started at a track called Kancharapara, then moved
to Barrackpore to a disused horse racing track, when I was
a little boy I remember going to the track at Alipore, just
past the Britania Biscuit factory, the sight and sounds and
the smells that came from these outings with my dad are still
firmly entrenched in my mind, to see those cars scream around
bends, Kinny was there, Peter Adams was there in a red and
white fiat with huge spacers on the wheels, open exhausts,
there were no Sennas, or Shumakers, just names that did just
the same to me, like Mike Satow, jee with a name like that,
speed just had to follow every one used cross ply tyres and
to walk around the pits and see those tyres with the outer
edge compleately bald, was just amazing. Castrol would make
a special oil for these racing cars and it had a beautiful
smell, sweet. As I sit here punching the keyboard, I'm closing
my eyes and the sounds and smells all come and take me back........back......yeah
I'm a motorsport junkie. It was around this time that someone
built the 'QMARRI', I still dont know who built it, but it
was there then, the motoring legend Kinny drove this car in
Sholavaram in Madras, I was the next person to drive this
car at Sholavaram, more on that later, let me get back to
what I was saying. The car was based on an Ambassador, it
had the ami block but an absolute gem of a head, it was a
'Derrington' cross flow head with valves the size of dinner
plates, they were really big, it had the ambi torsion bar
suspension up front, and an independent rear, it had two 40mm
DCOE Weber carbys, a high lift cam, a tiny gearlever, with
the shortest action shift that I had ever seen. It had a ambi
diff cage with fabricated stub axels to link it up to the
independent rear suspension. It was very quick.
 In
the days when the only two shapes around were the Ambi And
Padmini, this car was a sight for sore eyes, it had a three
branch exhaust system which came out of the side of the car,and
the resonance of the exehaust note was orgasmic at full boar
you could hear it for miles . This is the car that my earlier
year in Calcutta revolved around. see the early pic of the
group of friends when we first laid our grubby little hands
on her, and then when the movie "GREASE" erupted we had our
own calcutta version of "GREASED LIGHTENING", many of Indias
top models (female), who visited Cal at the time were treated
to wild rides down Red road, yeah we made the Earth move in
more ways than one. Finally the day came when we took her
down to Sholavaram.
 For
her return to Sholavaram we fitted her with a Fiat engine
bored out to 1198cc, (the upper limit of the class was 1200cc),
fully ported and balanced the motor, then put double sprung
valves, lager diameter, and a F3Y cam ground by Piper in England,
we used a fiat gearbox, but had to swop the webers for two
solex carbys, Rules rules!!, Sholavaram had never seen such
a sexy formula Indian (as they were called) Ok so before some
one jumps up and down, beauty lies in the hands of the beholder,
so there.
It was a dream come true to drive her at a race track, to
describe the feeling, let me put it like this. you have this
stunning new girlfriend, you ve told all your friends about
her but no one has ever met her, Ok so on this special occassion
you rock up to the party where every ones jaw drops as you
walk in with this drop dead mmm on your arm, your cool on
the outside, but on the inside your going YES YES, your screaming
laughing all at once, and all your face betrays is a smile.
 I
smiled all the way around the track, this what this car was
ment to do. I sat second to pole on the grid and I think I
came third that day. look at that picture taken at sholavaram..
I still go WOW.
Last year I went back to calcutta for a short holiday and
went to my friends house in Jadavpur where she lies................it
was sad.....she had been un licenced so I could not take her
out for a spin, but she was there, well kept, un fortunately
we didnt start her up , so I didnt even get to hear her, but
she was there.
With the arrival of the formula one circus in Calcutta, I
hope , she gets to be driven around a world standard track,
I bet she'd like that , Look after her guys she is an original
and THE LAST ONE LEFT
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