Chennai Garage: Giving a quirky twist to Ambassadors, Autos

As we drove past and requested the driver to pull over, we realised it was Princely Jeyachandran, one of the main organisers of the Rickshaw Challenge, that draws participants from across the world. Intrigued, we drove along with Princely to his Chennai Garage in Ambattur, that boasts of not one, but many other old cars and rickshaws that have been given a quirky twist. Princely tells us that he has been doing it for over six years now.

He recalled how it all began. When Princely joined the Rickshaw Challenge in 2010, he was running a printing business. He soon found out that the organisers, being the initial years of the challenge, were constantly running into trouble during the race because mechanical problems cropped up with the rickshaws that were provided to the contestants. That was when Princely decided to step in. “Even though I joined the challenge in 2010, Aravind had invented it in 2006. Aravind was in Hungary for 12 years and had some experience organising similar challenges in different parts of Europe. This challenge was invented because he wanted to do something specific to India. So, in the initial stages Piaggio auto rickshaws were used for the challenge. When I joined in 2010, I found out that Aravind was running the show using people who were commissioned to work. At every rally, there was one guy who would show up, take a look at problems you point out and then disappear. So further along the challenge, if there were any other problems, there was no one to rectify them. And there were also cases where these people were taking the money and not repairing the rickshaws and not replacing the faulty parts. This is why, I decided to start an enterprise to cater to these needs,” explained Princely, the General Manager of Chennai Garage. 

Referring to what Chennai Garage does, he added, “Rickshaw challenge is our main business. But we also cater to other individual demands from time to time. We collect a lot of spare parts from old vehicles and use them to create new rickshaws from scratch. Almost 75 per cent of the parts we use are recycled. We opt for new spare parts for the rest because it’s necessary for maintaining quality. The biggest attraction for people, however, is how we customise the vehicles as per demand. We only do fun things and don’t do any major changes like we add air-conditioners or mini-fridges and give the vehicle a paint job that makes it unique. I don’t want to mislead anyone here. Most of these customisations are not strictly legal — like painting the rickshaws in graffiti. But, because they don’t harm anyone and because the tourists love it, the authorities allow it,” he added.

The Garage not only provides vehicles, but also dishes out basic driving lessons to the foreigners who come to them. “The people who come to us for vehicles are usually already good drivers. The only thing we do is accustom them to driving on Indian roads. It is quite unfortunate the way people drive in this country. I feel that irrespective of whether you are late to office or a politician who feels he is above the law, you should drive responsibly,” says Princely.

Apart from the rickshaws, Chennai Garage also caters to rally events like the Ambassador rally India’s Cup, the Red Rickshaw Revolution and Pimp My Tuk Tuk. Princely also runs an accommodation facility for foreign travellers, especially those coming down for the rallies.