The only sounds that we associate with cars are those of blaring horns. But what if your car could create some mind-blowing music? Surprised! That’s exactly what’s on at the Auto Expo this time — music created by playing on old car parts. And its’ not just car parts. Traffic safety signals, trash can lids and plastic barrels — all are chipping in to make the expo a much livelier place.

On a stage created inside the Maruti pavilion, Saravanan and Iilayaraja, two drummers from Chennai, drummed their hearts out on silencers, petrol tanks, fuel cans, coolant tanks, side doors, bonnets and wheels of used Maruti cars. The car-gazers forgot the autos and turned to the music, bursting into spontaneous applause at the end of the 10 minute piece, which would be repeated every two hours each day at the expo.

At another place, outside the Chevrolet Pavillion, an ecstatic crowd is rapturously cheering on another couple of drumers — Wince Romanelli and Mitch Martin from Chicago — as they mesmerise the audience using trash cans, road safety signals and barrels as their instruments. The autos are alive with the sound of music.

Assistant general manager, marketing, Maruti Suzuki, Vivek B defines it as a part of Maruti’s “joy of life” concept. “This performance is taking place inside the ‘joy of life’ zone, which is our central theme for the expo. We are trying to bring joy to the Indian consumer through cars. This performance is all about joy through autos,” he said.

Co-director of Delhi-based Gravity entertainment group (the event management company at Maruti pavilion), P Vijay Kumar said, “We saw musicians abroad creating music with trash bins on the road, and that gave us the idea. We bought all the ‘musical instruments’ from the kabadi markets, first testing each car part for the kind of sound it produced,” he added.

Saravanan and Iilayaraja trained for two months as a preparation for this. “It’s a lot more difficult to play on car parts, as they have very hard surfaces. The performance needs much more effort and energy,” Saravanan explained. The music, interestingly, is different each time.

“We play the piece in three sequences, taking any kind of base and improving it spontaneously. We play it the way we feel at that moment,” the duo said. Mitch and Wince, who performed at the Chevrolet pavilion, on the other hand have been creating music from waste for about 13 years in the US.