Vijay Mallya's Ferrari Now Restored By An Indian King: In Images
Vijay Mallya is a name that needs no introduction. The king of good times, the fugitive billionaire is currently residing in London. When he was in India, he used to lead a very lavish lifestyle, which included expensive and exotic cars and mansions, before committing a ₹9,000 crore scam. After he left the country, the authorities attached all his assets and auctioned off some of them to recover the debt. One such car in his collection was a Ferrari 328 GTS. The car has now been bought by an Indian king and is fully restored too.
The images have been shared by Manish R. Jain on his Instagram page. In this post, we see a fully restored, pristine-looking Ferrari. The car has been bought by Sangramsinh Pratapsinh Gaekwad. He is actually an Indian former first-class cricketer and cricket coach. He is also a member of the Gaekwad dynasty of Baroda and is currently first in the line of succession to the unofficial title of Maharaja of Baroda.
He bought the car and probably got it restored to factory condition. In the images, we see a couple of other classic cars in the garage, which is a hint that Mr. Gaekwad has a taste for classic and sports cars.
The post mentions that the car once belonged to Vijay Mallya. The Ferrari, with a Maharashtra registration, is now with Mr. Gaekwad. The Ferrari seen here is special, as we don’t have many examples of this in India. The 328 GTS was launched in 1985 and replaced the Ferrari 308.
The Ferrari 328 GTS gets a classic-looking design with pop-up headlamps and a long-bonnet sports car look. It is actually a mid-engine V8, two-seat sports car. The images only show the exterior of the car, and it looks like the owner has had both the exterior and interior redone. We see beige leather upholstery with the Ferrari logo on the headrests.
The Ferrari GTS is powered by a 3.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 engine that generates 270 Bhp and 304 Nm of torque. It had a top speed of 267 kmph and could do 0–100 kmph in 6 seconds. These figures may sound a bit slow by today’s standards, but it should be noted that the car was launched in 1985, and it was a fast car for its time.
Pratapsinh Gaekwad's Cars
Pratapsinh is a car enthusiast, and the Ferrari 328 is not the only car in his garage. He owns an Aston Martin DBS, a 991.2 Porsche 911 GT3 RS, a 1978 Datsun 280Z, a Bentley Brooklands Coupe, a Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG, and a Porsche Cayenne.
He also owns a 1966 Mercedes-Benz 230SL “Pagoda.” This was in production from 1963 to 1967 and was nicknamed the “Pagoda” due to its concave roof.
This convertible is an extremely rare car and a car collector’s dream. This vintage convertible was powered by a 2.3-litre M127 inline six-cylinder engine. It had a top speed of 200 kmph, and the engine generated around 148 Bhp and 196 Nm of torque.