The following article appeared in the Jan. 10, 2008 issue of Drive magazine:
Oru Bose doesn’t like to be categorized. He moves from architecture to horses to acrobatic flying to tennis to cars with the ease of getting on and off a jetliner. Yet his collection of exotic automobiles has a common denominator: They’re all convertibles.
“I love convertibles because I’ve always been a motorcycle fan — the wind blowing through your hair. It’s fun,” said Bose, 63, a world-renowned, award-winning architect. “They are like moving sculptures.”
Four dazzling cars compete for Bose’s attention when he isn’t traveling half the year to construction projects and between the offices of Bose International Planning and Architecture in Houston, Warsaw and his native New Delhi, which he left for New York 40 years ago.
“When I come back from my projects, I like to detach myself from the business world and play with my cars,” he said.
The impulse to collect the exotic is spurred by Bose’s love of the automobile, beginning when he was a 7-year-old in Delhi and longed for an Alfa Romeo; he eventually owned six of them.
“The epitome of living would be to have the cars as part of my studio, to get up in the middle of the night to polish them,” he said. “It’s a real love affair. It’s not an obsession.”
It’s love when the eye pictures a shape, a bend of metal that seems to move though it is still, when the hand caresses a fender or feels the road through a steering wheel or traces a finger over leather stitching, when the ear picks up the song of an exhaust. The mind melts into smiles.
“Just as I want my buildings to stand out as a piece of architecture, I want my cars to stand out,” Bose said. “I have a weakness for beauty.”
His design studio is in his modest home in Eldorado, where he has lived for nine years with his photographer wife, Patricia, and son, Rajah, 13. His architectural think tank is in a rented house, also in Eldorado.
That’s where he parks his red 1999 Ferrari 355 F1 Spider with its 4.2-liter V-8 guided by a six-speed Formula 1-style manual transmission controlled with a paddle shifter. It’s Bose’s “most thrilling” car.
“For high performance, there’s nothing like the paddle shift,” he said.
Possibly the queen of the foursome sits in protected comfort at Santa Fe Municipal Airport — a sky-blue 1988 Rolls-Royce Corniche II with a white parchment interior. It’s powered by a 6.5-liter V-8 Rolls engine that’s joined to a four-speed automatic transmission. It’s his “most elegant” car.
At home, within spur-of-the-moment polishing distance, are the newest exotics. One is a white Bentley Continental GTC driven by a twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V-12 mated to a six-speed automatic that can be manually shifted. It’s Bose’s “most civilized” car.
Then there is the white Morgan Aero-American, a limited edition made for the U.S. market. Barely squeezed into the long snout is a 4.3-liter BMW V-8 attached to a traditional six-speed manual transmission. It’s Bose’s “most fun” car.
“Each model represents the best in its class,” Bose said. “The Ferrari is one of the nicest ever made. The Morgan has classic looks, one of a kind. The Bentley is a good example of German engineering and British coach building.”
As a mere 27-year-old, Bose was appointed design director for Disney World’s host city of Lake Buena Vista, Fla., in 1972. His career took off, closing the gap between his taste for exotics and his ability to afford them. An early exotic for him was a Lamborghini Espada. He bought a Maserati Merak in 1975.
Bose “got tired of Disney” but stayed in Orlando, where he founded his own company in 1976 to design everything from apartment buildings to amusement parks all around the world.
One Bose design is the Rosemarie Shellaberger Tennis Center at the College of Santa Fe that opened in 2002.
Despite owning cars that are the stuff of dreams for many auto enthusiasts, Bose said he doesn’t consider himself special.
“I’ve never been wealthy,” he said. “It’s a relative thing. It’s priorities. I lived in apartments even when I was doing well. I think of myself as an average guy. The only difference is that when I see something I like, I go after it.”
Between designs, he made time for acrobatic flying in a twin-engine Beechcraft, auto racing, hang-gliding, skiing, pro-level tennis, equestrian show jumping (he has three horses), motorcycle racing and, of course, collecting and driving exotic cars.
“I don’t like to be categorized,” Bose said, adding later. “There’s a little shade of daredevilness in me. I’m not very good at many things, but I like to try out different things. I don’t have to be the best.”
What’s next? “I would love to have an Aston Martin DBS or a Maserati coupe,” Bose replied without hesitation.
Richard C. Gross is a Santa Fe-based writer and editor. E-mail him at drive@sfnewmexican.com.
Posted by Richard 