A fleet of Maseratis vehicles, which the Papua New Guinea government bought for a one-time summit in 2018, are now on sale at a massive discount.
Papua New Guinea is one of the poorest countries in the world and is struggling with an outbreak of polio, but it found millions of dollars several years ago to buy 40 Maserati cars to take world leaders to a global summit. The cars were purchased in Sri Lanka and flown on a jumbo jet, according to the Autos website CD player.
These types of cars are usually loaned or leased by car manufacturers, but the Papua New Guinea government thought it was easier to just buy cars for a total amount of about $5.7 million. Only after the purchase, the government realized that there is not a single Maserati dealer in the country.
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The cars were bought to drive around the world leaders at the APEC summit, but due to the controversy over the cars, some leaders refused to enter. To quell public outcry, then-Minister Justin Tkachenko promised Maserati cars to “sell like hot cakes.”
Three years later, only two cars were sold, although almost new cars were offered at reduced prices.
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