Car used by Rabindranath Tagore [Nobel Laureate of Literature in 1913 ]

Rabindranath Tagore’s 1933 Humber bearing registration number WBA 8689 kept in a glass enclosure at Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan.

 

 

The 1933 Humber was perhaps the only car that Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore ever called his own. He loved the car and used it till his last days. Beside the bard, this historic car has had illustrious passengers like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru. Power Drive uncovers the tale of the Humber.

 

In the year 1938, Rabindranath Tagore’s eldest son and the first Upacharya of Visva Bharati – Rathindranath Tagore returned from the United States after completing his studies in Agricultural Science from Illinois. In the same year, Rathindranath purchased a pair of 1933 Humber sedans from HH Lilley, Rootes Ltd, which was the only Humber dealer for the whole of India, Burma and Ceylon. Its showroom stood at 42 Park Street in Calcutta. Rathindranath purchased these cars for 400 pounds each (approximately Rs 5300 in 1938). One of these two cars was kept at Tagore’s ancestral home in Jorasankho in north Calcutta, while the other was taken to Visva Bharati in Santiniketan.

 

Other mechanical innovations that featured in this car included:

 

A mechanical fuel pump

Radiator shutters operated by thermostat in the header tank

Engine and gearbox in one unit with silent-bloc trunnion mountings

A starter motor with 2-to-1 drive to ensure that the engine was spun rapidly when cold

A new frame with deep-section sides had an extra stiff and deep triangulated cross member in the middle

Suspension was, of course, non-independent with beam axles and half-elliptic springs

A new down draught carburetor.

Done