One In A Billion

Rarity of another kind Meet the only Porsche 356 in India

- Srinivas Krishnan

All it took was a wrong turn for Rajendra Kumar Jain to become the proud owner of a beautiful 1965 Porsche 356. Call it love, destiny, karma, fate, providence, one thousand pounds sterling, whatever. It held Raj by the hand, took him around the corridors of Christie’s, made him skip a few rooms and led him straight into an auction room he had absolutely no plans of visiting.

There she was, an immaculate classic Porsche fluttering its eyelashes and waiting for it to lift Raj’s hand and make a bid. One-Two-Three-Sold to that tall gentleman over there.

Of course, it didn’t happen that way; I was just exaggerating. The bit about the fluttering eyelashes.

ART ON WHEELS

 Fifty-six-year-old Raj Jain is a British citizen of Indian origin, a businessman based in London. He is a globetrotting dealer in art, antiques, exclusive watches and curios. He also owns a fairly well-known retail outlet in the high street epicentre of London – at Bond Street in Mayfair, where people throw enormous amounts of money at his employees to buy small objects that tell the time.

Raj owned several nice, modern cars, including a Porsche 993 911 Tiptronic, but never fancied himself as a vintage or classic car buff. But one day in the 1990s, it so happened that he was looking for a particular room while walking around the corridors of Christie’s, the famous auction house, and stepped into the wrong auction room. The 356 was coming up for bids and it was going for no reserve. He has no recollection why he raised his hand, but out of some instinct, he went ahead anyway and did it. Though some others were also making a bid for the Porsche, it seemed to be written in the stars that the 356 would be his. And by all means, it was a pretty good bargain – at less than a thousand pounds, Raj suddenly became the owner of a beautiful classic car.