Abandoned Rolls-Royce may hit the road again

The owners of a Rolls-Royce that has been rotting in a Sharjah parking lot for more than two years have said they are confident they will be able to get the car running again in the near future.

Depak Nanjee, whose family jewellery company, Nanjee Parshotam, owns the vehicle, said the car had not been abandoned.

"Maybe next year we're going to drive it. Perhaps then my brother's son will get his driving licence and will be able to drive it," he said.

Nanjee said he and his two brothers had been approached by people who wanted to buy the British-built vehicle, but had rejected all advances.

"My brother is not ready to sell it. People have asked but we've said no.

"We don't drive it at the moment because we have a lot of other cars Porsche, Mercedes, Jaguar that are newer.

"I drove this car myself before and it was a good car but we don't like to drive it now."

He said the family bought the Rolls-Royce about a decade ago and left it in the parking lot between two and three years ago.

The car has a hubcap missing and only one windscreen wiper remains. Two of the white-rimmed tyres are going flat.

A wing mirror has been ripped off and the Dubai licence plate is "several years" out of date, according to police.

One of the few things that remains gleaming is the famous Spirit of Ecstasy mascot above the gigantic grille. But the flying lady looks painfully out of place on this heap of a car.

Frank Shaw, president of the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club in England, said it was amazing how often the company's cars were just abandoned to their fate by owners who had had enough of them.

"You find them in the most amazing places. There was one Rolls-Royce that was used by Henry Royce himself, and that was found in a barn with a load of chickens it was a total wreck," he said.

Although he said he was "very sad" to hear what had happened to the car in Sharjah, Shaw said there was hope that it could survive.

"When they get abandoned, in a lot of cases it means somebody who would not normally be able to afford a Rolls-Royce gets the chance to own one. And sometimes after that they rebuild them," he told Gulf News from his home in Birmingham, England.

The car, which is thought to have been built about 20 years ago at the former Rolls-Royce production line in Crewe, England, has been left close to a roundabout near Sharjah's Central Market.