{"id":258,"date":"2011-02-20T19:07:53","date_gmt":"2011-02-20T13:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=258"},"modified":"2019-03-31T06:57:23","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T01:27:23","slug":"motorsport-in-kashmir-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=258","title":{"rendered":"Motorsport in Kashmir &#8211; I"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <b>Jhelum Valley Cart Road<\/b> from <b>Kohala<\/b> to <b>Baramulla<\/b>, described at the time as &#039;<i>the most wonderful mountain road in the world<\/i>&#039;, was completed in <b><i>1889<\/i><\/b> and was extended to <b>Srinagar<\/b> in <b><i>1897<\/i><\/b>. <\/p>\n<p>Prior to the advent of the automobile in Kashmir, circa <b><i>1915<\/i><\/b>, travellers to Kashmir made the journey in a two-horse four-seater <b><i>tonga<\/i><\/b> or a single-horse two-seater <b><i>ekka<\/i><\/b>. <\/p>\n<p>\tIn <b><i>1922<\/i><\/b>, public transport was allowed on the <b>Banihal Cart Road<\/b>, which connected Srinagar with Jammu.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/lorry.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><i>Traffic across the Banihal Cart Road<\/i><\/p>\n<p>\tIt was the <b>Maharaja&#039;s of Kashmir<\/b> (surprise, surprise) who owned the first cars in the Valley. During the <b><i>1920<\/i>&#039;s<\/b> <b>Maharaja Hari Singh<\/b> put together a collection of <i>custom-made<\/i> <b>Rolls-Royce<\/b> cars including a <b><i>1925<\/i> Barker Tourer<\/b>, <b><i>1927<\/i> Windovers Limousine<\/b> and a <b><i>1929<\/i> Thrupp &amp; Maberly Tourer<\/b>. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/0k47M.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>\tIn the late <b><i>1920<\/i>s<\/b>, the <b>Northern Motor Company<\/b>, headquartered in Rawalpindi, started selling small four-cylinder <b>Chevrolet<\/b> tourers from a showroom in the <b>Ganda Singh Building<\/b> in Lal Chowk. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/wzF7W.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/tourer.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><i>Chevrolet Tourer on the Jhelum Valley Cart Road<\/i><\/p>\n<p>\tFrom an endurance point of view the greatest motor adventure of the Pre-war era was the <b><i>1931<\/i> Citro\u00ebn-Haardt Trans-Asiatic Expedition<\/b>. The achievement of crossing the Himalayas between Srinagar and Gilgit over a pony track across the <b>Burzil Pass<\/b> (13775 ft) will probably never be surpassed.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/haardt.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>\t<b>Georges-Marie Haardt<\/b> and his team set out for China from Srinagar on the <b>12th<\/b> of <b>July <i>1931<\/i><\/b> in specially designed <i>Citro\u00ebn Kegresse<\/i> half-tracks. This expedition marked the first motorised crossing of the <b>Greater Himalaya<\/b> range. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/burzil.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/cliff.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>\t<i>This famous photograph from the Citro\u00ebn-Haardt Expedition has inspired book covers and movie posters.<\/i> <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/OBizx.jpg\" width=250><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/obJGY.jpg\" width=250><\/p>\n<p>\tHere is a video of the expedition on YouTube. Watch out for 2.15:<br \/>\n<center><a target=\"_blank\" href=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jO3tC_amDFo><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/citroen_film.jpg\"><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Update: Watch a longer (better quality) version <a target=\"_blank\" href=https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dUfqZUEJFJI>here<\/a>. Don&#8217;t miss 7.20.<\/p>\n<p>More motor stuff <a href=\"http:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=1026\">here<\/a>.  Enjoy !<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/sign.jpg\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Jhelum Valley Cart Road from Kohala to Baramulla, described at the time as &#039;the most wonderful mountain road in the world&#039;, was completed in 1889 and was extended to Srinagar in 1897. Prior to the advent of the automobile in Kashmir, circa 1915, travellers to Kashmir made the journey in a two-horse four-seater tonga [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kashmir","category-motorsport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}