The day Diego Maradona went to train with a Scania truck
Diego Armando Maradona would turn 64 today. He will forever be remembered for all his magic displayed on the playing field, but also for having been a unique character off the court. Owner of thousands of anecdotes, among them he remembers the day he went to Boca Juniors training with a light blue Scania 360 Topline truck. It was at the time of his last return to the club, in 1997. Almost three decades later, Infobae went looking for him and was able to find out his current whereabouts.
In those times, when the remembered star was part of the Xeneize squad led by Héctor Rodolfo Veira, Diego would have become obsessed with buying a Scania and some suggested that he resorted to the truck to avoid contact with the media. On Wednesday, October 15, he was surprised when he appeared with his representative, Guillermo Coppola, with the truck that had a breakdown 100 meters from the premises of the Commercial Employees Union in Ezeiza where the Ribera team was training at that time. A local resident offered to take him so he wouldn’t have to walk, but all the reporters present saw that he had gone with the truck. “Did you see what a cute little machine! Now it’s going to be difficult to make notes for me: no journalist is going to be able to hang up,” he told the journalists present.
Ten days later he played his last game at a professional level and it was in Boca Juniors’ 2-1 victory against River Plate at the Monumental Stadium. He played the first 45 minutes and in the second half he was replaced by Juan Román Riquelme, then 19 years old and who had just been one of the figures of the Under 20 world champion in Malaysia. Diego kept the truck and once separated from Claudia Villafañe, he moved to Barrio Parque, where his neighbors did not view the Scania favorably in an area where Flavia Palmiero, Marcela Tinayre, Mariano Grondona and Susana Giménez, among others, also lived. others.
Maradona with the Scania (Instagram)
Some time later, the truck was bought by a transportation company, until 2012 when it was acquired by two partners, Juan Carlos Rodríguez and Héctor Colombini. “That truck was bought by a transportation company and since they worked with cold equipment and traveled outside, the truck, since it has a nose, did not give it the length since it went too far: by regulation it was 20.5 meters and these trucks with a nose arrived at 22 meters. They traveled to Chile and if the Gendarmerie caught you, they would fine you and not let you circulate,” Rodríguez tells this medium.
“Since the truck was of no use to them, they had to sell it. Through a friend who sells spare parts he told me about the truck and we bought it in 2012 with my partner, Héctor Colombini. We had received a rumor that it was Diego’s, but when we confirmed it when we saw the papers, we began negotiations. I bought it more because I knew that Diego used it than because of the truck itself,” he recalls.
“The papers are registered and there are other details, for example, the few kilometers he had since he did not go out to work. It was intended to sell it and it was already in perfect condition, just a little dull on the paint and with very good irons,” he explains. Juan Carlos is 59 years old and was 21 when Maradona shone in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. He is a River Plate fan, but “Diego goes further, he belongs to all Argentines. We all want to have something that was ours and to be able to take care of it and in our case it happened to be able to have the truck.”
Maradona’s Scania in pure drifting
Rodríguez highlights that “it is a pleasure to drive it because although I am not from Boca, like all Argentines we carry Diego in our hearts. I felt the warmth on the steering wheel that he grabbed and let’s think that the hand with which he scored the goal for the English was there.” But this was not the only truck that Maradona had since he drove another one just like it, but black. “I think that Scania, as it was in succession, could not be transferred. “I understand that it was left lying in a shed in Ezeiza.”
The Buenos Aires businessman, originally from Capilla del Señor and who is in charge of developing an industrial park, says: “I don’t see it every day because it is kept in a warehouse because we don’t use it for work, but every time I go to see it they give me I want to get on and go for a ride. Sometimes I say ‘how I wish I were a few years younger and could have driven this truck longer.’”
The legendary Scania 360 Topline model 1996 with patent AVP 115 reappeared publicly in 2022, in a drifting event. “We exposed it at kilometer 86 of Route 8 where I am developing an industrial park. They had an event with prepared cars. There they suggested we spin the truck and since we knew the boy who was going to get in we let him drive. We knew of their conditions. At one point he went out with the truck to dump water on the place he used as a runway. He turned it around and it was wonderful to watch, it was wonderful. It is a light truck (5 tons) and has a lot of power in the engine (360 horses) since it drags 45/50 tons,” he says about the spins that the vehicle that belonged to Maradona took.
Juan Carlos Rodríguez bought Maradona’s truck (Credit: Courtesy Motor1)
They also took him to another event in Mendoza and he confesses that when people find out that it is Maradona’s event, “everyone wants to take photos and get in to touch the steering wheel. Especially the little ones. It’s Diego’s truck. You have to take it with that feeling.” Furthermore, he states that Coppola himself asked to borrow it for the series that recreated his life and was played by Juan Minujín.
The remembered captain of the Argentine national team always expressed his love for vehicles, especially cars. From his beginnings in football when he bought his first car, a Fiat 128. Or already in Napoli once he achieved glory with the remembered black Ferrari Testarossa. Or the day he went to the Autódromo de Buenos Aires and was Oscar Aventin’s companion before a Road Tourism race or having spun on top of a rally car.
Diego Armando Maradona is resistant to oblivion because he is part of the collective imagination of Argentines. He made a country happy with his magical left foot and strong personality to be an undisputed leader of his teams and especially of the National Team. Off the field he was the author of unforgettable stories such as turning a truck into a legend that today continues to be a unique attraction for people.
27 years later the truck looks in good conditionIn the windows there are images of DiegoThis photo is located on the windshieldThe truck is usually seen around Capilla del SeñorThe back of the ScaniaThe interior of the vehicleThe truck is a 1996 360 Topline modelThe steering wheel that he held MaradonaWeighs five tons and has 360 horsepowerThe front of the giant on which the patent can be seenThe black truck that would be kept in a warehouse in Ezeiza (Twitter)
Photo credit: Motor1
Thanks: Carlos Cristófalo – Pablo Ciaglia
