"I want the warmth and comfort of my home in a car. My S-class gives that."

His on-screen antics bring smiles to a lot of faces. But few things in life have that same effect on actor Shekhar Suman. His S-class is one of them. By Girish Karkera.

Everyone dreams. Some dream small, some big, but very few actually realise their dreams. Well-known film and television star, Shekhar Suman is one of them. Why do we say that? Well, he is pursuing a dream profession, lives in a dream house, and to top it, has just acquired his dream car - nothing less than a Mercedes Benz S-class, arguably the best car in the world!

“As a kid I’d always fantasised about having a Mercedes,” reminisces Shekhar. “You ask any upcoming actor or actress, most of the times if not all, he or she will have one final ambition - to act with Amitabh Bachchan. I think the same goes with cars, there’s one ultimate goal - to own a Merc.” Pretty philosophical.

But it’s not just any Mercedes that could wow this multi-faceted actor. He wanted the “best” one around. A good enough reason not to buy the E-class, when it first came to India. “It is a good car, no doubt. But I don’t find it value for money. It’s too high-priced.” But the S-class costs twice as much? “True. But the S-class is in a league of its own. Add to it, it’s an exclusive car. Only 22 are being sold in Mumbai. It’s like you’re sitting in the car and look out of the window, and for miles there won’t be a car like yours.” But it’s not just the exclusivity that Shekhar is after. True car enthusiast that he is, functionality matters a lot too. “I spend a lot of time travelling in a car from one shoot to another. And I look for the same comfort and warmth in a car that I would get at home. With the S-class, I get all that.”
And that’s not surprising. With 30 innovations and a sharp focus on driver and passenger comfort (see Autocar India, August 2000), this big Merc could easily qualify for the title of ‘palace on wheels’. Talking about size, the 16-feet long and six-feet wide S-class can be quite a handful in Mumbai’s pathetic bumper-to-bumper traffic situations. “I’ll drive the S-class only at night. Or for special occasions. I’m quite scared of these wayward autorickshaws. I mean, one scratch on my car and I’ll probably lose sleep for a month.

“I started my life from scratch. Don’t want to do that with my car,” he adds in his patent cheeky style.Shekhar Suman is a car aficionado to the core and the passion runs in the family. He has memories of his father, Dr Phani Bhushan Prasad’s first car, a Vauxhall. Unfortunately he never got a chance to drive it. “I was eight, then. One day when everyone was asleep, I filled up the car’s fuel tank with water. I’d seen guys put water in their cars!” The Vauxhall never ran again and Shekhar got the thrashing of his life. He learnt to drive pretty early, though. At 12 he learnt to park his family Ambassador, albeit with a minor incident when he drove into the portico even as his parents were ‘admiring’ their child prodigy’s driving skills.

Shekhar’s first car was a second-hand Premier Padmini, which he bought way back in 1985 for Rs 30,000. “I felt on top of the world that day.
“Then I bought a brand-new Padmini, complete with bucket seats, floor gear, air con, tinted glass - I felt like I was a king. But then I saw a (Maruti) 1000 whiz by and I thought, maybe if I could own that, then it would be the ultimate. So I bought a 1000 and it was a dream come true...until, I came across a (Daewoo) Cielo! That’s one thing about dreams - they don’t die, just keep getting bigger and bigger.”

And bigger they were getting as the Cielo made way for a Toyota Lucida van, followed by a HiAce van, a Honda City Automatic, till he woke up one day to come face to face with the S-class.

“It’s a fascinating piece of machinery. Every day I enter the car, I seem to discover something new about the car,” he says gleefully. “It’s like hey, it can do this. Hey, it can do that,” he almost jumps up like a kid who’s just got a new toy. Coming to kids, his 12-year-old son Adhyayan is a car freak too. “He’s a car fiend. Seems to know everything about cars. If he’s home and I don’t find him in his room, he’s probably tinkering with the Merc.” And sonny’s favourite marque is Ferrari.

But not for dad Shekhar. For him, the Merc will always be above the Rolls-Royces, BMWs, Lambhorginis, and even Ferraris.

So what next after the S? “Maybe a Mercedes Q or Z-class . . . if they make one!”