Reader Bill F shared this tale you may not believe even after seeing the pictures. This 1959 Ferrari was sitting in an apartment for over 30 years. It seems this fellow bought it in 1975. He drove it for about eight years and then decided to restore it. But where the heck do you find a secure place to do the work in a rough part of Hollywood? Why not in an apartment of course, especially if you own the building. He cut open the wall so the opening was not visible when it was closed, rolled the car in and got to work. He didn’t even empty the apartment! He bought lots of parts and had the engine rebuilt. There’s a six inch thick binder of documentation of the work done. The restoration work stopped in the early nineties. Eventually the fellow finally let his friend have a look and they end up purchasing it last April. The story is on Petrolicious and it makes an interesting read. Can you imagine how the buyer felt when he first saw the car? He had no idea what kind of car was in the apartment. I wonder what the neighbors thought about their quiet tenant in number eight that no one ever saw. Thank you Bill F for sharing this amazing tale!
There’s the rebuilt engine sitting in front of the fridge. I hope he emptied the fridge before he started this project! I know I’d love to have a Ferrari engine parked in my kitchen, how about you?
The mattress is leaning against the wall and the vintage light fixture is still in the living room. And, yes, there’s a Ferrari sitting there. This is going to be a beautiful car when it’s completed, of course, with a very interesting story. Can you believe it now?
What a great story. And a great car.
I have had parts and even a 1000 Kawasaki IN my house but never a complete car.
Rooming with a Ferrari, and a a 250 to boot! 1959 was right in the thick of it for the best years of Ferrari, IMHO. Fill it up with High Test please, and clean the Windshield….. :-)
My grandfather built a tractor inside his house. Of course, to get it out, it had to be taken apart again – and obviously it was never put together again after that :D
Gosh, I think I may have met this guy. He owned a run-down apartment building in Long Beach, and I bought a bunch of antique Jaguar parts (seats, rear tray tables) and he mentioned owning an old Ferrari. He was just eccentric enough that it could’ve been the same fellow. Great story!!
in 75 i turned down a running 250 cabriolet for $3,000 in Dallas. XKSS for the same price. I did have an Elan engine in my kitchen and a buick 3.5 v8 in the dishwasher. I liked dishwashers. It was good to be a car nut in those years.
were you washing the 3.8? or did you always want to put an engine in a dishwasher? beautiful Ferrari, be even better once restored! V/12 is a work of art!
In the early seventies a friend of mine took me to his relative’s house (uncle I think) to see a car in the basement. It was a 1964 Chevrolet Belair Station wagon. At the time the car was 7~8 years old and had been there for several years already. It was left there in perfect working order when the original owner bought a new car.Originally, the basement was a garage under the side of the house that was accessed by a steep driveway from the street. Some time in the late sixties an addition was added to the side of the house closing off the driveway. I drive by from time to time and the house is still there and there is still no access to get the car out. Currently, the original owners son lives there. We’ve seen this behavior of keeping car indoors before but, I can’t explain it.
In 1977 my Dad found my first car…a ’71 Camaro Sport Coupe. It was in a guys basement about five miles from my parents house. Paid 15-hundred for it and drove it for six years before Western Maryland and Maine winters took it’s toll on the body and it began to nickle-and-dime me to death so I sold it for parts. Everything sold expect for the trunk lid & rear bumper which I kept. They are now on my ’72 Sport Coupe. Had my Crystal Ball been working I would have asked Dad to keep looking until he found an old Ferrari….or a ’68 Shelby. :)
A few years ago there was a story floating around in the Mopar mags featuring a Hemi Cuda coupe that had been sitting in a living room for almost 40 years, very lo miles just a cpl thousand on the odo. a 100% survivor… Before that I remember the stories of the 289 Shelby Cobra that was in a mans bedroom… There are some weird hiding places for automotive gold out there…
The engine can stay in the kitchen if it can make coffee.
A buddy of mine took apart his 71 Charger and had the engine and front clip in his bedroom. I don’t know what ever happened to it but we were in our early 20’s back in the early 80’s. We would always gather in his room to see what “Progress’ he made. I guess that is called bench racing.
I relate this to a story of a man who build his own plane(glider) in the attic and they had to remove the roof to get it out!
So it begs the question…would you kick a Ferrari out of your bed? Sure, right into the kitchen were it can make me a sandwich.
one of the most beautiful Ferrari ever, here it is original photo
that’s back in 1963/4 Another original photo of my father Ferrari
Thanks for sharing the great pictures Fedrico!
And this is unusual because of why.
Back in the 60’s I rented a room from a family, and the husband rebuilt a Plymouth 426 Max Wedge in the kitchen so I can believe someone has a Ferrari in the apartment. Stranger things I’m sure have happened.
Perhaps that guy knew how Gibbs got the boat out of his basement.
Building a project in a building with no way to get it out has been going on for years. I seem to remember the story of a guy named Henry Ford who did it.
During my most recent project I had two spare bedrooms full of parts myself.
You just work with what you got and don’t let anything stop you.
I gotta let Mom read this one! She came home from work to find Dad had muncie 4 speed on a piece of plywood in front of the fireplace. He was warming it up so he could work on it. Sparks flew on that cold afternoon,Dad obviously learning a lesson, and giving us kids another story to tell of Dad.
Where else to warm it up ? I and to get my own toaster oven for the garage after I left some pulleys in the kitchen one, wife turned it on to heat up and all the paint burned off them setting off the smoke detector
Does this mean I do not get my security deposit back?
I rebuilt my alfa 2 litre in the rumpus room. Just a few small gouges in the lino from the head studs.
Reminds me of Gomer building the old Rambler inside Andy’s courthouse..
it was Goober.
A Ferrari in somebody’s apartment? I can top that story.
Years ago when I owned a Ferrari the word among some fellow owners went around that a woman had requested to be buried in her favorite car…… Did you guess that the car she was buried in is a Ferrari, specifically a 330 America?
And she still is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_West
More info by Googling ‘woman buried in her Ferrari’
I would put that car in any room in my house. This has to be one of those cars that I dreamt of many many nights of my ill-spent youth. I would have wrestled an Eskimo and kissed a grizzly bear just to have seen a real one back then.
And I thought the guy down the street with the pre war Packard walled up in his house was odd. Or his neighbor with the three airplanes in his house. One in the living room with his bed next to it when he died. Urban legends that are true. Must be the water. Cheers Bob
I saw this on the local news and researched the hell out of it. There’s video someplace of them opening up the wall. This is the kind of find that I LOVE to read about. Senior prank at my high school (many years before I graduated) was that they took a VW beetle and cut up the body and reconstructed it in the teachers lounge. I guess it was much simpler times then, that shit would not fly in today’s schools.
This Austin 7 lives inside.
I also remember someone in England having a lotus Europa being restored inside his tiny London flat. The walls had to be cut to bring it in. Then closed up like it was until the project was finished.
On another note, Ferrari motors of almost all years are pieces of man jewelry. Why doesn’t one of these techy nerds with a big 3d printer start making plastic life size copies of them! I would buy several for the garage and perhaps encase one in a Plastic cube with glass top for a table. My check book is open……
Of course, there is this story of the Ferrari Dino that was buried as part of an insurance scam.
http://jalopnik.com/5933077/we-solved-the-mystery-of-how-a-ferrari-ended-up-buried-in-someones-yard
Great story.
Gottta be an early contender for find/story of the year.
My wife likes to joke that when we got married, I had 3 and a half Land Rovers. Yeah – there were a *few* parts in the kitchen. All that’s left now are the memories. Ah… good times….the only I that I regret letting do was the SIIA Dormobile. They’re not exactly common. My guess is that it’s in pieces somewhere in SoCal.
like the same 1 (250 GT) but better – SWB Tour de France (4 a hrd top)
Closest I’ve come is letting an engine spend the winter in my office.
Not that this even comes close, but I’ve always loved hearing the story of how my grandpa Leonard and 4 of his college buddies disassembled his Model T and put it on top of the Old Main building at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN. When called in for questioning, he wouldn’t give up any names and was suspended. While I don’t know the length of the suspension, I do know that he eventually graduated from there.