Al Onzi navigates through conversations as a gentleman would, being observant before speaking in concise and well thought of responses. Sitting across from him in his office adorned with classic memorabilia, you get a sense of a Saudi man of character, classy mindedness and, well, fun. The fun part comes when you start talking about cars his motor head syndrome emerges. Al Onzi shared how his love affair with cars started. “I was 12 years old, my father took me and my brother, Adel to a showroom on King Fahad Road. There I saw the Ferrari F40 for the first time in my life. It was love at first sight,” he jokes. “Since that day, I would drag my father and brother to visit it every Friday. It became a ritual for us three, I would spend hours and hours just looking at the F40, marveling and studying it.”
This is the remarkable and rather rarified world of Talal Al Onzi, a car collector, enthusiast and owner of 7 Car Lounge, the first dealership of its kind in the Kingdom. A year since its inception, 7 Car Lounge has already made a mark in the international automotive scene. It has been ranked as one of the Top 10 exotic car dealerships in the world, pitted
against older contemporaries in Dubai, Tokyo, Europe and multinational franchises.
A Boy and the Ferrari
At first encounter, Al Onzi exudes the stature you would expect from a businessman. Apart from being the owner of 7 Car Lounge, he is the Chairman of Baraa Trading, whose portfolio includes Nozomi, Disk Dr and Rent-A-Car.
It was a valid infatuation by any auto aficionado’s standard. After all, the F40 is dubbed to this day as the ‘greatest supercar the world has ever seen’ by no other than Jeremy Clarkson. It took years but eventually, Al Onzi did get to buy his first F40 in 2008. “It’s still my favorite car, hands down. I’ll choose it over any other,” says the man with over 50 other collectible vehicles in their Riyadh and Dubai garages.
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