Diego Maradona, Argentina’s late soccer legend’s Porche said to be worth $240, 800, is up for grabs in an online auction which will last from Wednesday till March 10, agency reports said. The car was said to have been bought during his “forgotten” final season in Europe.
Maradona, who died in November, 2020, drove the 1992 silver Porsche 911 to and from training and matches when he was playing for Spanish club Sevilla in the 1992-93 season, his last in Europe, after serving a 15-month ban over a failed drugs test.
“It was delivered new to ‘El Diego’, Diego Armando Maradona, and because of this provenance this car probably could be worth double or three times the value of a standard car,” Gregory Tuytens, car specialist at auction house Bonhams, told Reuters at a storage facility in Belgium.
The price estimate is up at 200,000 euros ($240,800) but Tuytens said Bonhams felt it could go for a lot more. “It will definitely appeal not only to car collectors but also football fans and just people who loved the person”.
Maradona was as much in the headlines off the pitch as on during that season, including when stopped by police for jumping a red light and speeding at 180 km per hour (112 mph) in the city centre, Tuytens said.
The car spent 20 years with another owner on the Spanish island of Majorca before it passed through the hands of several French collectors. It comes to auction with about 120,000 km on the clock.
At death, Maradona was honoured with a period of lying in state when thousands of people turned out to pay their last respects.
