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On 28 February 2016, a video claiming that Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya was able to get cheap parking in New York City by using his expensive car as collateral for a small loan went viral on social media, racking up more than 15 million views within a week of its initial posting: This video, however, didn't report a true story. It was a new version of an old joke that we first covered back in 2006: While the exact origins of this humorous tale are unknown, a version of it was published in Bentley: Lighter Moments With Our Heavy Metal, a collection of short stories, illustrations, and poetry from Bentley owners in 2002: Various versions of this joke have been published over the years, and while the basic premise remains the same in each iteration, the person seeking cheap parking has changed from a a blonde to a Jamaican to an Italian to a businessman to a Chinese man to a Jewish man and now, finally, a specific Indian businessman. Interestingly, the make of expensive vehicle has also changed over the years. In 1998 the car was a Rolls Royce, in 2002 it was a Bentley, and in the most recent iteration it was a Ferrari. Vijay Mallya's name was first inserted into the joke when it was published on The Vijay Mallya Blog in 2012. As this version was nearly identical to the versions mentioned above, it's reasonable to assume that someone (perhaps Mallya himself) simply inserted Mallya's name into an old joke. The situation described above did not happen to Vijay Mallya, and most likely did not happen to anyone else, as it is highly unlikely that a bank (or anyone else) in New York City would go through the trouble of storing someone's car for only $15.41.
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