The Mystery of Nelson Mandela’s Missing Toyota ‘Freedom’ Car

It is just 10 years (5/12/2013) since Nelson Mandela died at his home in Houghton near Johannesburg in South Africa and whilst much has been written about his life, the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of his Toyota ‘Freedom’ car remains unsolved.

When the great man Nelson Mandela was released from the Victor Verster Prison in Paarl on the 11th of February 1990, he walked proudly alongside his former wife Winnie Mandela with a clenched fist above his head and boarded a 1986 Toyota Cressida 3.0i Twin Cam 24 Automatic GLE registration number CA 9981 to take him to Cape Town City Hall home and then home.

The car was popular with the working classes in South Africa at the time, but it was in fact a last-minute decision by Mandela’s friends who thought the car more appropriate than the Mercedes Benz that was originally planned. opted to use a fleet of Toyota’s instead of the Mercedes Benzes like initially planned.

He used it briefly and it was reportedly handed back to the showroom who supplied it with very few miles on the clock and sold to a buyer who apparently paid cash for it.

It then fell into obscurity until 2009 when a man from Maseru in Lesotho claimed that he owned it. The man whose name cannot be verified stated that he purchased the vehicle for R48 000 from a car dealer in Durban in 2009. He alleged that the dealership contacted him a few months later wanting to buy back the vehicle for R500 000.

In explanation to the Lesotho Times the man suggested that a Mr. Krishnapersadh who owned the car dealership where he got the car had a friend who was a Major John William Harding who had allegedly overseen Robben Island when Mandela was imprisoned there.

Harding had used the car to take care of the former president's needs and when he moved to a place called Centurion, he handed the car back to Krishnapersadh who had then moved to Durban in South Africa. It was suggested that both Harding and Krishnapersadh registered the car which was given the registration number of ND 232255 prior to selling it and share the profits.

The Lesotho times was apparently told later by Krishnapersadh's son, Sanjay had stated that his father had passed away, but he could not verify the car was genuine and he no longer spoke to Harding as he had moved away.

Nothing more was heard about the car until 2020 when a Mr. Selibe Sello (not his real name) * from Mosotho declared that he owned the car and had done so since 2009. He suggested the asking price for the car was a R1.1M.

*Selibe Sello’s decided to withhold his real name because he feared the attention he would receive when it was known publicly that he was the owner of this sought-after car.

When asked about his acquisition of the car Sello suggested that he had been in Durban on business when he saw the car in a drive in ‘somewhere’ where they sell cars on Sundays. He stated that a large signboard was next to it with ‘Mandela’s Car’ written on it.

A fuller explanation as told to the Lesotho Times was “I immediately fell in love with that car but I never bought the story that it belonged to Mandela. To me the Mandela connection was not significant, but I liked the fact that the car was in good condition and as one who loved Cressida’s I approached the car dealer, a Mr. Krishnapersadh, who was selling the car for R50 000.

“I didn’t have that kind of money on that particular day and I pleaded with him to keep the car for me until I came back at the end of the month in January of 2009.

I eventually negotiated to pay him R48 000 so that I could use the change to buy fuel.

A few months later, Mr. Krishnapersadh called me with an offer to buy back the car for R500 000 because it had some historic significance. But I turned him down because I had fallen in love with the car.”

Since learning about the Mandela connection, Sello suggested that he had contacted both the South African Authorities and the African National Congress Secretary General Ace Magashule to tell them I have the Mandela car, but no one has replied. He also stated that he called the then Western Cape provincial transport minister Sanele Nyoka when he learned that investigators were looking for the car. Sello suggests no one has contacted him at all.

South African High Commissioner in Lesotho, Sello Moloto, stated he had not heard of Sello’s claim that he owns the Mandela vehicle but would nevertheless like to hear his story after its provenance had been verified from car historians.

To date Mr. Sello’s Toyota registration number ND 232255 has not been seen but enquiries by police colleagues in South Africa suggest that when it was viewed in 2020 there was a colour disparity between it and the Mandela car.

Various South African reports show that in 1990 the bonnet on Mandela’s car suffered some quite a few dents caused by the massive crowds that greeted him on his release from prison.

Mr. Sello’s car in 2020 also appeared to have ‘a few dents on the bonnet, even after maintenance and repainting.

Sello maintains “The car is still as good as new and has never been involved in an accident. It is kept in a safe place and is rarely used. Nothing has been changed except the steering cover.”

He apparently has not satisfied his many critics who doubt the car’s legitimacy. Most important he has not allowed his car’s chassis and engine number to be examined which would prove one way or another whether it is the missing Mandela Toyota.

?On 27th April 1994 Nelson Mandela had become South Africa's first fully democratically elected president and to mark the tenth anniversary of this historic event BMW South Africa and its employees donated their resources and time to build these special cars, while many of BMW's parts suppliers assisted the project by donating components.

Ex-president Mandela personally signed the interior of every car and each was issued with an authenticating plaque. They were intended as fund raising vehicles to be auctioned across the world for the benefit of various charities, the principal recipient being the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.

Individual Democracy Cars were exported to Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, the remainder being sold in South Africa. One example, a 2004 319i UK Democracy Car was sold by Bonham's at Madame Tussaud's in London in June 2005 to an anonymous bidder for ï¿¡38,000 with the ?proceeds going to both the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and the UK children's charities Norwood and Shine.

Another of his cars was a red W126 S Class Mercedes Benz.

When Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison, workers at the Mercedes-Benz plant in East London, South Africa paid tribute to the leader with a gift made specially for him: a red S-Class.

They brought the idea to management, who agreed to donate the parts, and the workers offered to build the car by hand during unpaid overtime.

Receiving the red W126 S-Class, Mandela said the colour would remind him of the blood spilled by South Africans in the struggle to end the Apartheid system.

This car is now in the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.

The 1994 BMW 7 Series Car.

In the heated build up of the 1994 South African general elections some people did not want to see Mandela as president and the prospect of his assassination was deemed to be too high to allow him to be driven around in an ordinary car.

The German manufacturer offered him a BMW 7 Series for his election and HIV/Aids campaign complete with bullet-resistant windows and bodywork. It had its own oxygen supply and run-flat tyres. It even has gun ports through which his bodyguards could stick two machine guns stored in a little compartment above the sun visors.

An African car magazine reported that whilst it looked like any other long wheelbase Black metallic E67 BMW 760Li with a 6 litre V-12 engine, on the inside it was different.

The door for instance weighed a ton and the glass was 57mm thick. It had a high strength floor pan, an on-board fire extinguisher and an emergency exit through the windscreen.

The car weighed three tons and was capable of sustaining considerable damage to allow it to keep running. A special communications system with GPS tracking was installed to aid immediate assistance and extraction in a crisis situation.

It was returned to BMW South Africa having travelled less than 50 km and at the great man’s request been donated to the 46664 Mandela Day School Libraries project and auctioned, the proceeds going towards suppling fully stocked container libraries to disadvantaged schools.

Today the cars facia section which was signed by Mr Mandela is currently displayed in the BMW boardroom.

Nelson Mandela's Bullet Proof BMW 7 Series car is today in the Franschhoek Motor Museum in South Africa

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