Why Kolkata's Statesman rally is India's oldest vintage car event

Why the rally calls itself India's oldest

The Statesman Vintage and Classic Car Rally is usually described as India's oldest continuously run vintage car event. The claim rests on a simple record. The Statesman newspaper started the rally in New Delhi in 1964, brought it to Kolkata in 1968, and the Kolkata leg has run almost every January since. The most recent edition, the 55th, was flagged off at 9.10 a.m. On 11 January 2026 from the Royal Calcutta Turf Club's Polo Grounds in Hastings. The 56th Kolkata edition is already dated for 11 January 2027 at the same ground, according to the rally's own website.

That word "almost" matters. Wikipedia's entry on the rally records that two editions did not take place in its early decades, once during the 1971 war with Pakistan and once during the 1973 fuel crisis. Those two gaps are why the rally's edition number and the calendar year it is held in do not line up neatly. The New Delhi edition's 50th running fell on 28 February 2016, 52 years after the rally began in 1964.

What counts as vintage, classic or just old

Indian clubs do not all draw the line between vintage and classic at the same year, which confuses new entrants every season. The Statesman rally's own entry rules, published on its website, set four free categories. Vintage covers cars built up to 1939. Classic covers 1940 to 1956. Post War covers 1940 to 1962. A catch all Others class takes vehicles at least 50 years old and no newer than 1976, capped at 20 entries. A car that misses the Vintage cutoff by a year or two often ends up fighting for one of those 20 Others slots instead, which is why owners in Kolkata check a chassis plate's exact build date before filling in an entry form.

Ahead of the 55th edition, The Statesman reported 52 vintage cars, 35 classic cars and eight neo classical cars on the entry list, along with seven vintage motorcycles and 18 classic motorcycles. The same report also put the overall field at around 160 vintage and classic cars and 50 two wheelers taking part in the 30 kilometre run, a wider count than the named categories add up to, which suggests the report's aggregate includes late entries or vehicles it did not break down by category. The oldest car on the 2026 start line was a 1913 Gebruder Stoewer owned by Ananda Chowdhury, imported from Pomerania by his great grandfather and still started on its original magneto rather than a battery. A year earlier, The Statesman had reported more than 120 cars and two wheelers registered for the 54th edition, including more than 20 vehicles making their first appearance at the rally.

How old cars get a city's roads for a morning

Running dozens of pre 1976 vehicles through Kolkata on a Sunday morning is as much a policing exercise as a motoring one. The Statesman's own account of the 55th edition says the route, approved by Kolkata traffic police, ran about 30 kilometres from the Turf Club grounds through the Shobhabazar Grey Street crossing to Harish Mukherjee Road in south Kolkata before looping back to the start.

Wikipedia's account of the rally describes cars being assessed for "originality and performance on the road section" during the city drive, rather than judged only on how they look standing still, as at a static concours. The published schedule on the rally's own website has cars assembling at 8 a.m. Flag off at 9.10 a.m. The drive itself, and prize distribution back at the Turf Club at 3 p.m. For an owner, that means a vintage car entered in Kolkata has to be insured, fit to move under its own power for the full distance, and acceptable to the traffic police for a public road closure. That is a tougher bar than simply owning something old enough to qualify.

With the 56th Kolkata edition already set for 11 January 2027, the format that has carried the rally since 1968, free entry categories fixed by build year and a police approved route through the city, looks set to continue largely unchanged.

Sources

• Statesman Vintage & Classic Car Rally, Wikipedia
• Kolkata edition entry categories and schedule, Statesman Vintage
• Cars rev at 54th The Statesman Vintage and Classic Car Rally, The Statesman
• Spectacular journey into the past: 55th Statesman Vintage and Classic Car Rally, The Statesman
• City awaits run of mean machines during Statesman Vintage Car Rally, The Statesman