Floyd Mayweather Jr. isn't one to rest in retirement, not when there are $3.5 million sports cars to buy. And, it's being revealed who the connoisseur behind his rare and expensive vintage car collection- including his latest chart-topping acquisition- is.
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| Okeke, left, has sold over 40 luxury cars to Mayweather |
The Las Vegas boxer posed with his latest purchase, a 2015 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, in a photo posted to his Instagram account Monday.
That was where we saw the man behind the purchases clearly. Mayweather brought Obi Okeke, a Nigerian, who owns Fusion Luxury Motors in Chatsworth, California with him to Miami to put the deal together.
Okeke says he has sold four Bugattis to the boxer including one traded in for his latest purchase, a convertible model he says is one of only 44 ever made.
Bugatti's website says the car reaches speeds of 254 mph (408.8 km) and accelerates from zero to 62 mph (100 km) in 2.6 seconds. The site also says the car is sold out.
Obi Okeke first came to the United States as a 5-year-old refugee during the Nigerian Civil War in 1967. His mother, from Ohio, was able to leave the country with him, but his father, who was born in Nigeria, stayed to fight.
Over four decades later, Okeke, now 53, is a fixture in the luxury automobile industry, dealing in cars that cost millions and selling to clients like Floyd Mayweather.
After that first move to the US, Okeke returned with his family to Nigeria, where he stayed until attending a private high school in Switzerland.
And that's when he discovered great cars.
While in Switzerland, Okeke developed a love for European wheels. By the time he was 15, his teachers had already known that he would end up in the car business, he said. Following high school, Okeke came back to the US and started college at Northeastern University in Boston, although he did not graduate from the school.
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| Mayweather and Okeke with the 2015 Bugatti Veyron |
When he was 21 years old, Okeke conducted the first of many car deals he'd close in his career. He purchased a BMW 323i Alpina and was able to sell it for a profit of nearly four times what he paid. The transaction was encouraging.
As you would expect for a car salesman, it took some time for him to work his way up to the status of being a salesman of supercars and the co-owner of a dealership. And he bounced around a lot: from Chevy to Dodge to Volkswagen to Lexus to BMW to Mercedes — and his last stop before opening his own place, to Ferrari-Maserati.
Following six years as the general manager of Ferrari-Maserati in Calabasas, California, Okeke in 2012 cofounded Fusion Luxury Motors in North Los Angeles with a man named Yoel Wazana.
Mayweather is easily Okeke's biggest-name client. He says Mayweather will stop in about once a month just to see what's available and if there is anything he wants to buy.
Okeke said he doesn't sell to a lot of celebrities, even though they stop in to look every now and then, just as Keith Urban did a few weeks ago. And the business plan behind Fusion explains why.
The strategy is to sell high-quality, rare luxury cars to car collectors, not just to deal expensive supercars to celebrities that have the money.
"Celebrities may buy a Range Rover or Aston Martin or something, but that doesn't mean they care about cars or want to collect," Okeke said. "My buyers are people who have a true passion."
Despite being one of the biggest names in sports, Mayweather falls into that category. His car collection features three Bugattis and many other of the premium car brands, like Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Rolls-Royce.
In total, Mayweather has bought at least 40 cars from Okeke. Most recently, Mayweather purchased a Koenigsegg CCXR Triveta from Okeke for $4.8 million, according to the boxer's Instagram. Okeke confirmed the purchase but could not disclose the price.
Previously, the most expensive car he's ever sold, also to Mayweather, was a 2003 Ferrari Enzo. The car was advertised at the time for $3.2 million, although Okeke couldn't disclose the final selling price. Mayweather has since listed the car for sale with Fusion, which just sold at an advertised price of $3.8 million.
AP
