Vintage & Classic Car Collection

The Mewar royal family began acquiring imported automobiles in the early 20th century as motor transport became available in India, following a pattern common among Rajasthan's princely states, where cars were both practical transport for hunting and touring the vast state territories and status symbols signalling modernity and international connection.

Maharana Bhupal Singh and later Maharana Bhagwat Singh Mewar were the primary collectors whose personal-use vehicles make up the bulk of the current collection, acquired across the 1930s through 1950s from British and American manufacturers via import arrangements typical of princely-state purchasing at the time. Several vehicles were used for tiger and panther hunting expeditions in the forests around Udaipur, fitted with features suited to that use, such as raised observation seating and reinforced bodywork.

The garage was converted into a public museum by the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation in the 2000s as part of a broader effort to diversify the family's heritage tourism offerings beyond the City Palace museum, capitalising on renewed international interest in the vehicles following their appearance in Octopussy and their documented use during state visits, including the Queen Elizabeth II Mercedes-Benz.

The museum is compact — a single converted garage building — so groups larger than about fifteen create noticeable congestion in the narrow viewing aisles between vehicles; large tour groups are sometimes staggered by staff into smaller batches at the entrance during busy periods.

Vehicles are displayed at close range without full barrier separation in some sections, and visitors are asked not to touch the cars, sit inside them, or lean on the bodywork, particularly given the age and, in several cases, the irreplaceable original upholstery and paint.

Unlike City Palace, this is a straightforward single-room circuit with no fixed walking direction, so visitors can move at their own pace and revisit vehicles without needing to complete a set route.

The museum's late closing time (21:30) makes it one of the few Udaipur heritage attractions that can be folded into an evening itinerary after dinner, rather than needing to be scheduled during standard daytime sightseeing hours — useful for filling an otherwise dead post-dinner slot.

The two Octopussy Rolls-Royces are the most photographed vehicles and tend to draw a small cluster of visitors at any given time; patience for a clear shot, or visiting slightly off from the museum's mid-morning and post-dinner peaks, helps.

The museum sits within the Garden Hotel complex on Lake Palace Road, a short distance from the old city core, making it easy to combine with a Fateh Sagar Lake visit on the same outing given their relative proximity, rather than treating it as a dedicated separate trip.