How did India's maharajas' cars end up in museums?

Why the question comes up

Walk into an Indian car museum and you will see information cards that read "formerly owned by the Maharaja of.." next to a Rolls-Royce or a Hispano-Suiza. The natural question is how that car got from a princely garage to a museum floor. Mostly it happened one of two ways. Either a private collector bought up what the royal garages sold off after independence, or the family kept its own garage running and eventually opened it to the public.

The collector's route: Pranlal Bhogilal

Gujarati businessman Pranlal Bhogilal, born in 1937, started acquiring cars, art and jewellery from princely families when he was "barely into his teens," according to his obituary in DeshGujarat. By the time he died in Mumbai on 12 January 2011, aged 73, he had put together a collection of 204 vintage cars, with 105 of them kept in running order on his 2,200 acre Dastan farm near Ahmedabad. That farm is now open to visitors as Dastan Autoworld, the Pranlal Bhogilal Collection, run by his family.

Recognition for the collection has kept growing after his death. FIVA, the Fédération Internationale des Véhicules Anciens, inducted Bhogilal into its Heritage Hall of Fame as part of its 2023 class, the first Indian collector on that list, alongside names like Jay Leno and Giampaolo Dallara, FIVA's own hall of fame page shows.

In August 2026, two cars from the collection travelled further than most Indian museum pieces ever have. A 1927 Hispano-Suiza H6C and a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K, both once owned by maharajas, went to the Musee National de l'Automobile in Mulhouse, France, built around the Schlumpf collection. According to Newsmonks, the Hispano-Suiza won Best of Show at the concours there and both cars stayed on for a two month exhibition, which the museum said was the first time historic vehicles from Asia had been shown at France's national car museum.

The royal route: Udaipur kept its own garage

Not every princely family let its cars go. In Udaipur, the Mewar family turned the old Mewar State Motor Garage, built in 1924 on Gulab Bagh Road, into the Vintage and Classic Car Museum. It opened to the public on 15 February 2000 and was inaugurated by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, founder of Britain's National Motor Museum, according to the museum's Wikipedia entry. It holds about 20 cars that belonged to the Maharanas of Mewar, including four Rolls-Royces and two Cadillacs, and an original Shell petrol pump still stands in the forecourt.

What it means for a museum visit

Both routes end at the same point, cars built for a handful of ruling families are now open to anyone with a ticket. Dastan Autoworld shows what happens when one collector buys across the country and abroad over decades. Udaipur shows what happens when a family never lets its own garage go. For a reader planning a visit, it is a useful way to read the information cards, ask whether a car was bought in from elsewhere or whether it never left the family that first owned it. Either way, FIVA's hall of fame and the Mulhouse exhibition suggest the rest of the world has started paying closer attention to where India's royal cars ended up.

Sources

• Dastan Autoworld, the Pranlal Bhogilal Collection
• FIVA Heritage Hall of Fame
• Historic Recognition in France for cars from the Pranlal Bhogilal Collection, Newsmonks
• Vintage and Classic Car Museum, Wikipedia
• World's greatest vintage car collector Pranlal Bhogilal is no more, DeshGujarat