She’s the sardarni who wowed the universe with her grace and poise. And that’s exactly what Manpreet looks for in her car, as she tells Ritujoy Chakraborty.

Miss India, Miss Universe Runner-up, and presenter par excellence — Manpreet Brar Wallia. But ask this sardarni to speak in Punjabi, and she smiles sheepishly. “Blame my army background for that, which kept us on the move all the time. Or the fact that my parents always spoke to me in English,” she says. But her eyes light up when I ask her about the cars that an army life afforded.

“Oh I just loved the black Ambys and Gypsys with the red light on top that Dad used to be driven around in. They were gorgeous.” We agree Manpreet! For personal use, though, there were less exciting Fiats and Marutis, in which she first got her hands dirty. But her very own car happened only after she became Miss India.

“The first thing I did after I had a little bit of money was buy myself a shocking yellow Zen! My friends thought I had gone crazy, but I just loved it. I even took it to Mumbai with me when I moved there for a few years. I taught myself parallel parking in it, bumping the sides a few times. But emerged a better driver for it!”

While the Zen was doing fine, fame and money was a regular companion for Manpreet, and moving up in life demanded a finer set of wheels. That’s when the Ikon 1.6 ZXi beckoned. “I always liked style, and in the segment of cars that I was looking at, I didn’t see a car other than the Ikon that was so stylish, so complete. It was powerful, very zippy, had a nice balanced stance and made me feel extremely secure and stable inside. Let’s put it this way — as compared to say, a Corsa, which I found very feminine, the Ikon seemed much more masculine, yet not in-your-face.” She agrees whole-heartedly when I tell her that the ‘josh’ machine is also one of the best handlers around.

The much-travelled lady was in Miami recently. “I wanted to rent something sporty, but practicalities like space dictated something saner, like a Lincoln. And boy was it comfortable . . . and very big! In fact, every other car seems cramped after that!”

One another note, she fondly remembers driving with her husband from London to the lush highlands of Scotland, and nearly running out of fuel and getting stuck in sub-zero temperatures! But what has to take the cake is an incident right back home, facing a demon of a snowstorm at 19,000 feet just beyond Sela Pass (Sikkim). “We (with her Brigadier Dad) were in a Gypsy, and visibility was zero. In fact, the jawan had to walk ahead and poke the ground with a ‘lathi’ to know where the road was, lest we fall off the mountain! The snow was so treacherous that the tyres had to be clad in chains (for traction). Yet, somehow we made it.”

Maybe these snowy bone-chilling experiences are the reason behind her love for convertibles and sunny weather. “I would just love to own a convertible. But sad about the pollution and the weather in Delhi,” she says. “Goa?” I suggest, and we both start swooning about that little paradise. So when she tells me her dream car is a Bentley, there are no points for guessing that the preference is for a Bentley Azure convertible. And what would she do with? “Leave the family LandCruiser parked at home and drive to Shimla in it!” l