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December 19, 2000
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Interview / Dilip Chhabria

'There's nothing sexier than a great car'

At 47, Dilip Chhabria is a legend. The only car designer in the world who has churned out 450 unique designs in seven years, creating what must be a unique company that churns out only 60 to 70 cars a year. Each car of a design never to be repeated again. How does he manage it? Pritish Nandy find out. Dilip Chhabria or DC Designs

Traditionally cars in India have been very boring. They were boring during the days of the Ambassador and the Fiat. They are even more boring now, in the age of the Maruti and the Ford. Why can't we have cars that are more thrilling in terms of design?

Manufacturers always cater to Mr Average. Numbers in India are not great in terms of car sales. So they all want to play safe.

They have in their stables more exciting models. But the more exciting models that they have are still not exciting enough for the extreme man, say, someone like you. Those exciting models always follow a pretty predictable plan.

Why is that? And why must car buyers in general be forced to buy only dull, conventional, boring designs?

If you look at Ferrari, you will see that they never made more than 3,000 cars and yet everyone just lusts after a Ferrari. Now that's catering to the extreme man. Why is that so? It is because the company hasn't grown. It is not weighed down by a lot of overheads, engineering, research.

If it's a Ford, a General Motors or a Mercedes Benz, they have outsized themselves out of the creativity range. General Motors, for instance, has a $180-billion operation. They have to sustain those marketing, distribution, development costs. So their cars are actually designed by committees. What can you expect?

Cars designed by committees always end up looking like this. It's only natural. These cars are not designed by passionate engineers or enthusiasts. They are signed off by finance guys, who will never take risks. And if you don't take risks, how can you produce something great?

You mean there are no great car design companies in the world?

There are. But they are usually the smaller specialist companies. Morgans, TVR, Ferrari.

The Europeans, in other words?

Absolutely right. The Americans have no history of handcrafted cars.

Why is that?

I don't think they can get it right. They buy good cars from others, but they cannot make good cars themselves. When it comes to engineering a great form, they are very, very poor.

They either produce something very large and very boring or they go completely overboard and produce something terribly flashy. They never get it right. Historically, Americans make the shoddiest cars in the world.

How come in this business of creating customised cars, there is only person?

You see, I am a product of Art Centre, California. That is the one college from where all the car design chiefs of the world have come. Today, to get into Art Centre you are competing with 700 applicants per seat.

Why did you go there? Sindhis prefer hardnosed businesses, not creativity colleges!

From when I was a child I would draw cars and my father chided me. He wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor or a businessman. Not a car designer. But when he saw my passion, my obsession, he ultimately succumbed.

He realised that this was meant to be my life's work and so he not only laid off, he actually began to encourage me. There is a picture of me when I was one year old with a garland of cars around my neck. That picture says it all!

Did you work anywhere before you set up shop?

I completed my commerce degree from HR College. Then, my degree in transportation design out there in the US. Then I joined General Motors. In exactly one year, I realised how frustrating it was, working every day with hundreds of others to build up GM's brand.

The entrepreneurial streak in me felt suffocated. So, one day, I chucked up the job and came back to India and joined my father's company. There I took some space in 1981 and started designing and making automobile accessories.

It was a runaway success and I started making so much money in those days that my father chucked up his business and asked me take over and grow mine instead. We went deeper and deeper into the accessories business and very soon became India's largest manufacturer.

But the itch remained to do cars and not just parts of cars. So, in 1992, I designed my own Gypsy and that was the beginning.

The beginning of creating unique, customised cars for others?

A Dilip Chhabria creationI realised that Indian craftsmanship, which is truly world-class, combined with my designing skills could be an unbeatable combination. I was proved right.

Today, we are in a unique position. No one has the kind of talent we have. When I tell people in the US or Europe that we have one million skilled man-hours available, they simply cannot believe it!

We have the best talent around and, believe it or not, we have had zero employee turnover in the past seven years.

Italian design studios have produced 60 designs in the past 50 years while we have churned out at least 450 in the last seven years. This is a unique situation.

My strategy was, over these years, to build a great global brand and every car I have made, by being unique, was my showpiece. These 450 designs went into becoming my track record which I can now leverage into the future.

Why cars? Why not designs for other things? Television sets, air-conditioners, computers?

Because that was my starting point. But now I am branching out. I am designing television sets, refrigerators, even office interiors. Just for the fun of it though, because my only real passion is cars. There is nothing in the world sexier than a great car.

We make only 60 or 70 cars a year, but the sheer delight of this experience is amazing. That is what welds us all together.

There are 450 people in the company working in perfect sync producing these cars. Each car has over 2,100 components, each mated to the other, each performing in perfect unison. Once a car is created by us, our interest in the design is over. Gone! We start working on another car. Another unique car.

You have never repeated a design?

Never. Every car is highly individualistic and relates specifically to its owner. It is an extension of his or her persona. It makes a specific, definitive statement. Every car is a stand-alone.

What motivates you about cars?

The fact that ultimately they are all about the most basic human instinct: sex.

It is all about the mating game, Pritish. The sheer orgasmic pleasure of a great car cannot be matched by anything else. That is why every individual succumbs to the temptation of wanting to own a car that best expresses his or her sexuality.

There is nothing more sensual, nothing more exciting than owning a car that enhances your sex appeal, that makes a statement about you to the other sex.

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