{"id":280,"date":"2010-06-12T00:25:37","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T18:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=280"},"modified":"2026-06-14T08:45:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T03:15:33","slug":"my-favourite-car-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"My Favourite Car Of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My entire family is obsessed with cars &#8211; the automobile gene is hardwired into our DNA.<\/p>\n<p>  Quite a few anecdotes about my father revolve around cars &#8211; his fondness for touring the countryside as the <strong>Prime Minister of Kashmir<\/strong> in a <b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mbzponton.org\/pax058\/people\/photogallery180.htm\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Mercedes-Benz Ponton<\/a><\/b> and  driving across the frozen Dal Lake in a <b>Land Rover<\/b>. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/s-11.jpg\" width=\"500\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/land-rover-on-dal.jpg\" width=\"400\"><\/p>\n<p>Then there is the amusing story about the cabinet minister who borrowed the Prime Minister&#039;s official car and surprised the driver by offering an exorbitant sum to replace the &quot;motion&quot; that broke on a steep incline! <\/p>\n<p>  Over the past fifty years my eldest brother&#039;s family has owned the <b>Tata Motors<\/b> dealership for Kashmir. Like their current partnership with <b>Fiat<\/b>, Tata Motors used to have  a tie-up with <b>Mercedes-Benz<\/b> and his office naturally featured Mercedes-Benz memorabilia. One print in particular remains vivid in my memory &#8211; a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL racer hitting a vulture at high speed. <\/p>\n<p>  Occasionally I would receive MB goodies in the form of key-chains, swiss knives and calendars. One calendar hung in my room for years beyond its expiry date. It featured high-quality prints of Mercedes-Benz models over the years. When the calendar was finally removed, I had a hand-carved walnut frame made for one of the prints &#8211; a <b>Mercedes-Benz 300 SL<\/b>. <\/p>\n<p>  Stimulated by the current <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fRL9mBrA8Mw\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">TV advert<\/a> featuring Michael Schumacher and the <b>Mercedes-Benz AMG SLS<\/b> &#8211; the modern MB\/AMG interpretation of the classic <b>Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing<\/b> &#8211; I put on my <i>racing\/googling<\/i> overalls and after a marathon Google Image Search session, I tracked down both the images. <\/p>\n<p>Here they are for your viewing pleasure &#8211; which I doubt can match my own.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/300slracer.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/300slgullwing.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>The most beautiful car that our family owns is my younger son&#8217;s Alfa-Romeo but no prizes for guessing my favourite car of all time. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/alfa.jpg\" width=\"300\"><\/p>\n<p>Over the years I have coveted many cars &#8211; the split-window <strong>Sting Ray<\/strong>, the <b>Lancia Stratos<\/b>, the <b>Ferrari Testarossa<\/b>, the <b>Bugatti Veyron<\/b>, and almost all models from <b>Aston-Martin<\/b> and <b>Lamborghini<\/b> &#8211; but IMHO the <b>Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing<\/b> represents the pinnacle of automobile design. It is the model against which all other designs are to be measured (and found wanting!). <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/gullwing-600.jpg\" width=500><\/p>\n<p>  As attractive as the <b>Mercedes-Benz AMG SLS<\/b> may be &#8211; the original is still the King.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/images\/sign.jpg\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My entire family is obsessed with cars &#8211; the automobile gene is hardwired into our DNA. Quite a few anecdotes about my father revolve around cars &#8211; his fondness for touring the countryside as the Prime Minister of Kashmir in a Mercedes-Benz Ponton and driving across the frozen Dal Lake in a Land Rover. Then [&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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kashmir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","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=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1953,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/1953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}