Ahmedabad gets ready to host a unique heritage car and motorbike exhibition.

• (LtoR) Himesh Patel aka Munnabhai Navroz Tarapore, (son) Harsheed Tarapore, Darbar Saheb of Mandavgadh, Punjabapu Wala Subodh Nath with Ford Model T first massproduced auto. Vijay SonejiDNA

It is that time of the year when owners of vintage or classic cars wipe the dust off their vehicles and lure Amdavadis towards the beauty, rarity and engineering of their valuable collectibles.

Organised by Gujarat Vintage and Classic Car Club (GVCCC) around 45 classic beauties — four and two-wheelers — would be vying for attention at a place near Jivraj Park on Sunday. The exhibition is aimed at increasing awareness about the importance of preserving heritage vehicles.

“Gujarat has a rich history and collection of classic cars. But, never did we have the right platform to showcase our grandeur to the masses. Now, with the formation of GVCCC in 2012, we ensured that we would do this and a lot more to preserve these heritage beauties for a lifetime,” said Subodh Nath, a GVCCC founder.

He further stated that more people were not indulging in buying vintage cars according to their affordability. Buit soon, more of these four and two-wheeler beauties would be seen hurtling down the city roads in all their majestic splendour.

“We recently concluded a show in Vadodara and vintage cars from Ahmedabad formed the entire rally. There were around a couple from Vadodara and one from Surat. Twenty-two cars from the city drove down to Vadodara, a daunting task initially, noting the fact that we owners were also fearing if these cars could take the load of driving. But we triumphed!” gushed Nath.

This year, however, showstoppers for the exhibition were without doubt — black 1926 Ford Model T and 1912 (102-year-old) motorbike Indian — that was unveiled on Saturday.

Sharing details about Model T, Navroz Tarapore said: “This was the first ever mass produced automobile in history, dating as far back as 1908. The model owned by us is from the year 1926. She has not been on the road for almost 50 years. It took us nearly 10 years to restore it back from the state it was. My son Harsheed especially has been working on this car for the last four years, piece by piece, to restore it to its glory days. She had her first drive in so many years on Friday night when Harsheed decided to give her the road test. This is a great achievement for us and hence we have decided to showcase this beauty at this exhibition.”

Nath went on waxing eloquent about his motorbike. “It is a 1912 model and we acquired it in 1982. It took us almost 16 years to restore it specification wise. Last year, however, when it was displayed at the Cartier Rally in Mumbai, it bagged the best bike award of the show.”

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GVCCC organised vintage cars and motorbike exhibition

The inevitable happened… Facebook bought an instant messaging service. After its denied attempt at purchasing SnapChat way back when in internet time, Mark Zuckerberg and co can breathe a sigh of relief at having acquired WhatsApp — albeit for US$19-billion — the popular messaging service with around 450-million monthly active users.

According to Bloomberg, the acquisition paid for in cash (US$4-billion), stock (US$12-billion) and shares (US$3-billion), is the biggest internet acquisition in more than ten years since Time Warner’s merger deal with AOL in 2001 for US$124-billion. Let’s take a closer look at the deal, because there are some fun and interesting facts about “WhatsFace.”

1. Co-founder Brian Acton was denied a job at Facebook

Back in 2009, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton — pre-WhatsApp — applied for a job at Facebook. He didn’t get the post, and signified the occasion with this tweet:

Turns out taking rejection on the chin and looking to the future can pay off in dividends… and stocks and shares.

2. It’s potentially a better deal for Facebook user-for-user, than the Instagram acquisition

When Facebook bought Instagram back in 2012 for US$1-billion people thought that was a fair chunk of money to dole out. Now dishing out US$19-billion seems like a staggering increase, but it might not be as much as you think.

When Facebook bought Instagram, the social photo-sharing service had around 30-million users. At US$1-billion for 30 million users means that Facebook paid US$33.33 per user. With the WhatsApp deal that equates to US$19-billion for roughly 450 million users at US$44.22 per user (or US$35 if you ignore the US$3-billion in shares given to WhatsApp’s founders and employees) — that’s not too much more money per head for more than ten times the users.

3. US$19-billion is more than:

Jamaica’s GDP and almost double Zimbabwe’s.

4. WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum signed the deal where he used to collect welfare

According to Forbes, Brian Acton, Jan Koam, as well as VC Jim Goetz (Sequoia), drove from WhatsApp’s offices to a nearby abandoned building where Koum used to collect food stamps to put pen to paper on the deal. Born in a small village outside Kiev, Ukraine, our guess is that Koum chose the spot to signify what life once was, and what he has achieved since.

5. Google wanted to know about any talks

About six months ago, WhatsApp was approached by Google, because it wanted to be informed about any acquisition talks with other companies, reports The Information. Turns out WhatsApp rebuffed the offer.

6. With US$19-billion you could buy…

All the Bitcoins in the world, a few times over.