Pakistan’s first online Antique Cars Museum launched

At the unveiling of Pakistan’s first online Antique Cars Museum at the Quaid-i-Azam House Museum on Saturday, all of the country’s top antique automobile collectors were there, along with their prized treasures.

Karim Chhapra was there with his resurrected 1924 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, in which the Quaid-i-Azam had also travelled while it was owned by the Nawab of Bahawalpur.

He told Dawn that there has always been a need for an online museum dedicated to the country’s antique and classic cars. “We, the collectors of these automobiles, were even promised land for a classic car museum in Karachi, which never materialized.” So, since we don’t have the property, we’ll have to make do with an internet museum,” he explained.

The idea for the online museum occurred to Shoaib Qureshy during the Covid-19 lockdowns two and a half years ago, he claimed. “We frequently attend vintage car exhibitions to share our hobby and our magnificent automobiles to the general public, but we needed a single platform for this purpose where we could display the majority of our vehicles. This is the first online museum of antique cars in Pakistan, where we can display the best of these vehicles not only in Pakistan but around the world,” he said.

Another antique automobile collector, Liaquat Malik, who was there with his 1961 ivory white Mercedes 190 SL and his bright yellow 1951 MG TD, remarked that because it was the age of social media, such a museum was necessary. “We will show the world our automotive legacy,” he stated.