PastImperfect: Rolls-Royce and the RajOf all the famous and often eccentric owners of Rolls-Royce cars, perhaps the most uninhibited owners of all have been the maharajas of India. For many of them, a Rolls-Royce was simply indispensable - a trend that began in 1908, when the Maharaja of Gwalior fell in love with the beautiful Pearl of India Rolls-Royce, which the company exhibited at the Bombay Motor Show.
He purchased it - paying with rubies - and began a 40-year association between Rolls-Royce and rich Indians.
The Pearl of India is sometimes considered the most beautiful Rolls-Royce ever built and was finished in cream with apple-green stripes edged in gold. A set of brown leather Finnegan trunks matched the brown leather upholstery of the car and the spare wheel even had its own matching brown leather case. At the rear of the car - outside the passenger compartment, of course - was a seat for the Maharaja's manservant. The Pearl was entered in the Bombay to Kohlapur rally - a tough 120-mile long trek through six mountain passes in the Western Ghats in which no stops were allowed, no spares could be carried and the bonnet was locked. Needless to say, the Pearl won the event by a handsome margin to demonstrate that such beauty was founded on brilliant engineering.
It was in the fitting out of the interiors of their Rolls-Royces that the maharajas tended towards the greatest excess.
The Nizam of Hyderabad had a yellow Rolls-Royce with golden lace curtains, gold brocade upholstery and, naturally, a throne. The roof of the interior was designed to look like the heavens at night, an effect Rolls-Royce engineers achieved using fairy lights and a perforated false ceiling.
The Maharaja of Patiala had the instrument panel of his Rolls-Royce encrusted with precious jewels. They were so valuable that when the car was sent for a service, four armed-men provided a 24-hour guard on it.
However there was a limit to what Rolls-Royce would do to their products - the ruler of Alwar owned six Rolls-Royces and when Rolls-Royce declined to carry out the modifications he requested, he had all six converted into garbage trucks.
Sadly, the nature of the modifications he requested, and which Rolls-Royce declined to carry out, are not recorded.
But perhaps surpassing them all was the Maharaja of Vizianagaram, whose most cherished Rolls-Royce was said to be made of silver.
It took pride of place each year in the Vizianagaram state procession - a hundred cars, a thousand elephants and a silver Rolls-Royce showered along the entire route in rose petals.