A motor enthusiast, Akshay Oberoi loves to give his four-wheelers a makeover. It’s a hobby that he picked up while growing up in New Jersey, a city that he says is full of garages that modify cars. After he moved to Mumbai and got busy with a career in showbiz, he didn’t pursue his interest, until the lockdown happened. During those months, with ample time on hand, he revisited his hobby.

Talking about how it all started, Akshay says, “While growing up in the US, my parents wouldn’t dump old cars, instead they would just hand it down to my brother and me, which we would turn around and try our best to make them look new and swanky.”

Sharing his experience of modifying his sedan recently, the actor says, “My wife bought the car in 2010 when she first moved to India, and we used it extensively. Recently, we thought of buying a fancy car, but that would cost a bomb. So, that’s when I thought of modifying it and making it look brand new. I imported a body kit, changed the engine, and added a new suspension and bigger wheels. I also asked the mechanic to work on the car’s sound (so that the car roars every time it vrooms by).”

His actor buddy Imran Khan is the one who encouraged him to go back to his passion for revamping cars. “Imran, too, is a lot into modifying cars. I remember just before the lockdown, he got a new car. He started fiddling with it. We found a garage and did the modification. Otherwise, this hobby was dormant for all these years, as the last time I thought about doing something like this was in 2007 when I was in New York. After we worked on Imran’s car, I got kicked about working on mine. In Mumbai, I don’t see this modification culture too much. It’s in Kerala. I have always been a pro; I have modified three other cars of mine before this one. I have always been interested in design aesthetics in general,” he says.

Amidst the buzz about Imran making a comeback into movies as an actor, Akshay says that he has missed watching Imran on the big screen for so many years. He says, “With friends as close as Imran, who you understand so well, I would never want to force him to do anything that he doesn’t want to do. Of course, I would love to see him in a film again. I would love to act with him. I feel I found a place here (in the industry) because I have been working so consistently. It could have happened to him too if he would have been still working.”

Saif Ali Khan has really cool cars. He has this beautiful car he showed up with during the shooting of our film Kaalakaandi. It’s a vehicle you can push to its maximum. It is already very fast and powerful, but you can do a lot with it. It is an American muscle car, and these cars have a lot of room for modifications.