Miguel tells me the cars are generally sourced from across the globe and Miguel along with his colleague are responsible for finding the best examples and then those are imported into the collection. Tomini has a dedicated workshop complete with a team of highly skilled mechanics who maintain the collection full time. Cars are restored to pristine condition and original parts are sourced whenever needed. Parts sourcing can take anywhere from a couple of months to more than a year. Sometimes the parts have to be manufactured from scratch.

There is no particular time frame for sourcing cars and the collection has around 85 to 120 cars at all times.

We start walking around the showroom and I get to lay my eyes on some really rare cars. First up, is a 1959 Berkeley SE492 Roadster. Only 666 units were ever produced and the car in the Tomini collection is one of the early examples. On asking Miguel about the most special car in the collection as far as rarity and historical importance is concerned, he points me to the 1962 OSCA 1600 GTS Zagato and I can see why. Miguel tells me that even though it may not be the most expensive or the fastest in the collection, it is by far the most special out here.  The OSCA 1600 GTS was manufactured by the Maserati brothers. Only 128 examples were ever produced and 97 of those were coach built by Zagato. This particular example was sourced from USA after a long stint in Japan. It was sold brand new in Japan at that time and was bought by Toyo Cork Kogyo, the company we now know as Mazda. The car was used extensively for R&D purposes, and here’s a bit of interesting trivia: this is the car that inspired the MX-5, one of the cult sports cars of today. Look it up closely and you can see the attention to detail. The upholstery on this car was done up by Mazda as well.

Moving on, my eyes fall on a gleaming NSX with the Acura badging. There is quite nothing like this example around. It is a brand new car with only delivery mileage, all 68 miles of it. It is the lowest mileage NSX in the world. It was bought by a group of three investors in Illinois, USA citing the rarity of the car, also not to mention the relationship the great Ayrton Senna had with the NSX as far as development was concerned.

Contd..