Introducing Shyam Krishnamachary's Standard Fleet! 

Shyam's head-turning Standard Pennant, knownand badged  as a 10 in India

Hello Phil,
After an undeniably long delay, here are the pics. and data on my current Standard fleet, as promised! Also, this would be my first article for the SMC  websitesite after I've become a member of the club!

First is my 1961 Standard Pennant (as you'd know, very confusingly badged as the '10' in India!)
This is incidentally my second Pennant, the first one (a '60 model) having been featured in your site earlier, and later sold to a friend who is restoring it. A few months later, I'd decided to pick up APU 3903, as it was a comparitively better and far more original car, although definitely was needing a lot of TLC! The first few pics. are of the car as it was when I bought it. I then immediately gave it for resurrection at my trusted workshop, where it was done up in a few months. Luckily, it didn't need much of an extensive restoration, being a very complete car. The only things still missing in it are: The horizontal and vertical slats in the front grille, which the
garage guys have temporarily improvised on, fitting a modified grille from a Hindustan Ambassador (local Indian-made car) Then the steering-column mounted indicator stalk with the bulb, and
lastly the original roof/interior-light. Also the rear windscreen rubber badly needs replacing, so does the front one (it looks better but leaks!)

You can click on each of these photos of Shyam's unrestored Pennant to see an enlargement:

Now that I'm a member I intend to order these spares from the club ASAP! These few shortcomings, however, didn't stop my car from turning out to be the stunner that she is! And after smoothing out the mechanical creases (a few minor ones remain), she sure is a delight to drive, although remains reserved strictly for weekends and local rallies/shows, the first one having attended was the Republic day (26th Jan.) show held only yesterday by a local club. Incidentally, my car happened to be the only Standard (apart from the 'Standard Herald' parked beside it in the pic.) in said show, which got her quite some attention! (note: the top blackened half of the headlamp lenses has been mandatory by local laws, although fewer people abide by it
today!) One thing that I'm not sure of is what colour my car's interior originally should've been.The doorpads are in red, while the seats in maroon, both obviously having been done up by a previous owner. Other paddings are mixtures in red and maroon. I suspect it was an all maroon interior, going by the padding on the rear-deck card behind the rear seat, which looks far older than the rest of the interior?

Click on the Commission plate and these restored photos:

I intend to redo the interior only at a later stage though, as it is in reasonably good nick for now! I'm also searching for white-walled tyres locally that'd give the car an entirely period finish! You sitll do get tyres of this size (5.60-13) here as they came on some other local cars as well but white-walls are next to impossible to find!

One day, Shyam's solid-looking Companion will get the restoration treatment it deserves

And more recently, my Pennant's got some company with my finding a '62 Companion a few months ago! Incidentally, I'd come across this carf irst in may last year at a local scrapyard (as seen in the first few pics. of this car), and was close to buying it but it surprisingly was bought back by the then owners! Only to be sold to a local dealer/middleman who'd told us about a certain Companion he'd picked up. And sure enough, it was the same car and this time I succeeded in buying it! I have not started it up as yet and although I was told that it is running, I had it towed down to the local workshop where it is going to be worked on. 

Click to see more enlarged photos of the Companion;

This car is definitely restorable with a reasonably straight body and minimal corrosion (the underside surprisingly still looks well-oiled!) although it certainly was lying abandoned in the open for quite a while by the looks of it, which was why it would've lost it's rear hatch glass and 2 door handles. The interior also has undergone some mods, notably the dashboard and the front seats (they look too straight-backed, unlike in my Pennant) It was originally black (most Companions in India came in this colour) with red interior, registered in 1962 as MSV 2219 and first owned by a lady in Madras. An interesting coincidence is that the second owner who'd bought the car in 1968 and sold it in 1972, happens to live in our locality itself! He'd driven the car down from Madras, selling it in Hyderabad (as these cars fetched more here than in Madras), after which it was re-registered as AAY 3131, changing quite a number of hands since, until I bought it. Curiously most of them had the car for not more than 2-3 years! He was thrilled to know about the car for the first time 36 years after he sold it!  He infact told me that the "Companion" rear badge had fallen off while he had the car and that he'd intended to fix it back but didn't bother to when he was selling the car. Yet he had it lying around a long time in his house, eventually lost! I've already sourced 2 via ebay though.

I plan to do a full stripdown resto on this car (at kind of glacial speed mainly due to some constraints!) although I'm sceptical about reverting to the original black exterior even though the
abovementioned previous owner has advised me, considering what it's rear shape coupled with a black exterior would make it look like! '

Hoping to revert further with questions/advice on restoration as work progresses. I guess I'd just need an 8, an early 10 and a Vanguard to complete my fleet!

Cheers,
Shyam

Hi Shyam,

Glad you are flying the flag for Standard Motor Cars!. 

For the benefit if our UK readers I would point out that the "10" badges on both cars are correct, though I am not sure it should be blue on the Companion, can someone advise me? Some of my viewers  may also have doubts about the lack of the correct bootlid (i.e. without trim and two-toning) but that is correct for an Indian built Pennant.

Also, the Pennant's Commission Number  at PN 39081 is nearly 1700 greater than any I am aware of on a UK Pennant. Does that mean that the higher numbers were reserved for export "knocked down kits" ?  In any case the Pennant seems to have come out of the Madras factory some 2 years after Canley production had gone over to the Herald, so clearly the Indian factory had a good supply of left over kits.

The Companion's Commission Number also makes it a very late car.

Kind regards,

Phil