Allen Iverson’s Maybach 57S Raises Questions That Only “The Answer” Can Retort

Yes, the consensus across all age groups has Michael Jordan as the GOAT (Greatest of all Time), followed, in whatever order, by LeBron James, Kareem, Wilt, Russell, Magic, Bird, Shaq, Kobe and the list goes on ad nauseum.

All these players, Jordan included, made people fall in love with the NBA, which is all the National Basketball Association could ever ask for, really. But what Allen Iverson did was completely different. He made people fall in love with basketball, showing them that one person, no matter how small, could make all the difference in the world. Kind of like Mr. Frodo, only with cornrows, a killer crossover and huevos the size of Volkswagens.

Iverson was generously listed as being 6’0” tall (1.83 m) yet put up numbers that were borderline Jordanesque for the better part of a decade. As an 11-time All-Star, he led the NBA in scoring four times, won MVP in 2001 with the 76ers, had three All-NBA First Team selections and averaged 26.7 points per game over the course of his 14-year professional basketball career.

For me personally, what stands out most about the man who everyone referred to as “The Answer” was the way he attacked the basket relentlessly, no matter how many “bigs” were in the paint or how many times he got knocked down. He just kept coming back for more. His toughness inspired an entire generation of basketball players to go out and dominate regardless of their size.

Now, as you might imagine, such a successful figure is going to own countless luxury automobiles throughout the years, and it so happens that we just stumbled onto one in this old Maybach 57S, featuring various aftermarket modifications courtesy of Dreamworks Motorsports.

The tuner added a set of 24-inch Savini SV37 wheels, PPG paint, Suntek window film and smoked taillights. As for performance, when the Maybach 57S was introduced back in 2005, it was animated by a 6.0-liter bi-turbo V12 engine, producing 603 horsepower and 738 lb-ft (1,000 Nm) of torque. One could hardly call this car “underpowered.”

Anyway, luxury sedan purists will probably scoff at most of these mods, not that there’s anything wrong with a sinister aesthetic, but those wheels border on comical. Of course, that wouldn’t have been a problem to a man like Allen Iverson, who single-handedly forced NBA Commissioner David Stern to introduce a business casual dress code, by showing up to interviews and press events wearing baggy clothes, chains and a durag.

Rarely can we say that it’s the man who makes the car, but in this case, you know what... that fine piece of German engineering couldn’t have asked for a more influential owner.