Netaji's 'great escape' car restored, President to unveil tomorrow

KOLKATA: The car in which Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had made his 'great escape' from his ancestral home here in 1941, while under house arrest by the then British government, has been restored and will be unveiled by President Pranab Mukherjee tomorrow.

The German Wanderer sedan of 1937 make has been restored to its 1941 look by automobile giant Audi and is now in excellent running condition, Krishna Bose, wife of Netaji's nephew Sisir Kumar Bose, told PTI.

"The President will flag off the car tomorrow, which was last driven by my husband Dr Sisir Bose for a shooting of a Japanese news channel in 1978 after it was gifted to Netaji Research Bureau by our family in 1958 and kept for visitors there," the former Lok Sabha MP said.

Krishna Bose said she and other family members had taken ride in the car till 1957.

She said though the car was in a good condition, the family and Netaji Research Bureau wanted to restore it to the 1941 look when Netaji was driven from Kolkata to Gomoh by Sisir Kumar Bose in the month of January.

"Engineers from Audi with the help of our technicians worked tirelessly for the past six months to bring that look in the car and now it will be unveiled for the people tomorrow," she said.