Syed Afzaluddin Hossain stands beside his 1923 Panther Sloper with a gloved hand resting gently on its handlebar. Not to pose for photographs on a winter morning when the city’s vintage vehicles have come alive, but to guard it.
“People get curious. They want to touch, twist, sit. So I keep the glove there,” he says with a smile. “This bike is not an object. It is family.”
Hossain, 54, is an automobile engineer by profession and a vintage vehicle devotee by inheritance. The Panther Sloper that draws crowds at rallies is not just his prized possession.
“This vehicle is my family bike. From my grandfather’s time. It has become a member of the family,” he says.
Vintage collectors often speak of their machines as children; Hossain goes a step further. “I say this is my first wife,” he laughs. “But I will not tell my real wife that. I will have to go hungry if I do.”
Cars and bikes, he says, run in his blood. His garage also houses an 1927 Austin Chummy car, a 1938 BSA M20 Sidecar with a mechanical fork, and even his son’s 1960 Lambretta. Yet it is the Panther that sits at the centre, the oldest, the most fragile, the most revered.
This bike is probably the only one of its make in running condition in Asia says Hossain
Maintaining a century-old motorcycle is “quite a tough job,” he admits. “But I am into automobiles. So my passion and profession run side by side.”
Every year involves careful servicing, gentle tuning, endless patience, and an instinctive understanding of a machine built long before modern roads or traffic were imagined.
The Panther Sloper, built by Phelon and More Ltd of Cleckheaton, Yorkshire, comes from one of Britain’s oldest motorcycle manufacturers, a firm that began operations in 1900. The company later became known simply as Panther, famous for their large single-cylinder machines with distinctive sloping engines.
This particular model is rare even by vintage standards. The 600cc single-cylinder engine sits at a 40-degree slope and acts as a stressed member of the frame, a concept patented in 1900 by Joah Carver Phelon and his nephew Harry Raymer. It features a mechanical fork, a separate Sturmey Archer gearbox, twin exhausts, and a three-speed hand shift lever placed beside the fuel tank.
One of the unique features of this vintage piece is its twin fish-tail silencers
Open valve rockers reveal the engine’s workings like exposed veins. It is a design both bold and elegant, born in an age when engineering solutions were visible and proud.
“It is a piece to admire,” Hossain says, running his hand along the long sloping silhouette. “Very sleek looking. And it is the only piece in India, perhaps the only one in Asia in running condition.”
The Panther was originally developed for defence use in post-World War I Britain. “And it really goes like a panther. They wanted their reputation. A bike where other companies cannot compete.”
The machine can still comfortably reach 80 kilometres per hour, he says, but he has never tested that. “I do not want to risk it,” he says.
On Kolkata’s uneven streets, the ride is kept gentle, 20 kmph at most. “The road clearance is very low. When you put it down from the stand it becomes overloaded. And when I go into a pothole, you can see my heart is out.
“It is lovely. Riding it is fantastic,” he adds. “You just need the habit. That is all.”