Detour Pit Stop #74: Gedee Car Museum, Tamil Nadu, India
India’s motorsport valley is home to an eclectic car collection that celebrates the life of local philanthropist GD Naidu.
Coimbatore, an industrial town in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu (or Tamizh Nadu, my fellow pedants) is no stranger to car culture. It’s home to some of the biggest names in the Indian motorsport scene. From road racers, rally drivers, specialist garages and tuners, to even an ex-F1 driver, the city has it all. Considering all that, it’s fair to expect a race track, great roads to drive on, and a car museum.
Coimbatore ticks all of those boxes, but Gedee Car Museum has a unique story behind it; it’s not filled with trophies, helmets, and scale models of racing cars. It was made to commemorate the life of a man whose perseverance, love for science, and philanthropy gave the city as much flavour as its motorsport connections: GD Naidu.
The overall collection is eclectic, so there’s a bit of everything: cars with a prominent spot in history, rare ones (in the Indian context), and some left-field motors. The Gedee Car Museum has a meticulously curated selection of vehicles and a growing section of motors that were relevant to the Indian market. For instance, you’ll find a pristine Tata Nano, the much-hyped $1,000 car, which spectacularly failed to take off in India, while at the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s also a carefully restored Hispano-Suiza, possibly the only one of its kind in the country. A bunch of microcars, classics, locally built race cars, and even a Rudge motorcycle round up the collection.
Gopalaswamy Doraiswamy Naidu, or GD Naidu, was an industrialist in Coimbatore who always gave something back to the Coimbatore community: from employment opportunities, a well-appreciated bus service, to institutes that impart technical and practical education, the list goes on. But that’s not all, he’s said to have invented and improved about a hundred gadgets, including indigenous versions of an electric razor, motor, voting machine, radios, and more.
So how come a car museum? Well, he was fascinated by cars, especially the technical aspect. So much so that he once got a Rolls Royce and stripped off its bodywork in order to show young students how the car functioned. The museum, along with the adjoining science museum, presents the chance to go back in time to appreciate some of the technological marvels from the previous century, many of which were Mr Naidu’s creations, alongside models of ships, trains and cars. There’s even a scale model of the Mercedes Patent Motorwagen showcased not too far from a life-size replica parked right at the entrance of the museum.
And it’s no surprise they produce these impeccable replicas right here in Coimbatore and export them to the rest of the world. With perfection — exactly how GD himself would’ve liked.
Words and Photography Paranjay Dutt Twitter