Dilip Chhabria is a renowned Indian car designer and the founder of DC Designs. He is known for modifying the cars of many celebrities, including several Bollywood actors. His cars have also appeared in several Bollywood films such as Tarzan: The Amazing Car (2004) and Dilwale (2015). He is the man behind the DC Avanti, India’s first sports car.
Wiki/Biography
Dilip Chhabria was born in Mumbai in 1954 (66 years old in 2020). He was born into a wealthy family, his father was a businessman involved in the electronic parts manufacturing industry. As a child, Dilip Chhabria used to draw cars and bikes on the walls of his home and behind notebooks. When he saw an advertisement for a design school in California, he decided to go into car design. To follow his dream and his love for cars, Dilip Chhabria completed a business degree and applied to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, where he studied transportation design.
appearance
Eye color: Black
Hair color: Black
Family and caste
Dilip Chhabria was born in Mumbai into a Sindhi Hindu family.
Children
He has two children, a son named Bonito Chhabria and a daughter named Minica Chhabria.
Profession
After completing a course in Transportation Design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Chhabria joined General Motors and started working there. He soon realized that working there would not give him the growth and opportunities he needed to become a designer. He decided to move back to India and work at his father’s factory in Marol, Mumbai. Dilip led a team of three people and produced a ring horn for Premier Padmini cars in a small area of the factory. This aftermarket product did wonders in the market and was sold at Rs 40 each. The manufacturing cost of the horn was Rs 8 each, which helped him get the push and funding he needed for his first project. In 1992, he modified his own Gypsy and it was a huge success. Riding on this success, Dilip went on to sign a deal with Mahindra & Mahindra, where he worked on the Armada and Bolero cars. Meanwhile, he kept working for the company, which led to the development of the Scorpio. Dilip Chhabria believes that the Mahindra Thar is one of the most customizable SUV models in the Indian market. He considers the most difficult project to be the Porsche 911, as he believes the car’s design is so perfect that it is difficult to tell if it needs to be modified.
The Mahindra Thar modified by Dilip Chhabria’s DC Design
dispute
- Raghuraj Pratap Singh, a six-time Uttar Pradesh MP and politician, filed a case against Chhabria for not delivering the vehicle as per the order in 2016. The politician had signed a contract worth Rs 1.24 crore with Dilip Chhabria in 2015 to modify an ISUZU 4500 WB van. Later, Dilip Chhabria refuted the claim, saying that he was not aware of the order. Chhabria responded to the allegation and said:
He said we did not deliver the vehicle which is baseless and wrong. We have been working with World Celebrity for the past 25 years. The vehicle has been sitting there for the past seven months. We have been writing to them asking them to collect the vehicle but they have not responded.”
- On December 28, 2020, the Mumbai Crime Investigation Branch arrested Chhabria on charges of fraud and forgery. According to Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Milind Bharambe, Chhabria used 90 DC Avanti cars manufactured by Dilip Chhabria Designs Pvt Ltd (DDCPL) to engage in fraudulent financing by obtaining multiple loans averaging Rs 42 lakh each. According to reports, in order to obtain loans from non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), the company would pretend to be customers of cars manufactured by it and then sell these cars to customers through fraudulent means; in addition, in order to obtain more loans, the company would register the vehicles with two or sometimes three RTOs in different states. This fraudulent means gained attention because a customer of DC Avanti cars registered his car with the Tamil Nadu RTO and when the police questioned him, they found that the car was also registered with the Haryana RTO. Later, the complainant filed a case against Chhabria in Mumbai, following which the Mumbai police arrested him.
Dilip Chhabria appears before Mumbai court
Car Collection
Dilip Chhabria owns a BMW X6 M, Audi R8 Spyder, Mercedes S-Class, Porsche 911 Turbo S, and several other cars.
Dilip Chhabria and his Mercedes S-Class
Facts/Trivia
- His creative and unique approach has extended to his personal life, as he named his children Bonito Chhabria (son) and Minica Chhabria (daughter).
- Dilip Chhabria got the opportunity to work with Aston Martin when Aston Martin asked him to design their show car, the Aston Martin Vantage. In 2003, the James Bond Aston Martin DB-8 was launched and since then his designs have been admired around the world.
Dilip Chhabria and Aston Martin
- Dilip Chhabria has been associated with the Bollywood industry for a long time. He has modified the vanity vans of Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan, costing the two actors Rs 3.5 crore each. Hrithik Roshan’s Mercedes-Benz V-Class van was also modified by Dilip Chhabria.
Shah Rukh Khan’s vanity car was designed by DC Design
- Dilip Chhabria, who loves painting and sculpting, displays his art in showrooms in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education