If you follow the collector car hobby very closely, you may have already heard the story. For those of you that haven’t heard it yet, the story of how these 11 Ferraris ended up abandoned in a field is a pretty interesting one. You can read articles about these cars here on thedrive.com and here on silodrome.com. Not only is the story about the 11 cars that were found, but it is also about four that are missing. Continue reading below to find out the details.
According to the articles, an unnamed attorney collected 13 Ferraris, 2 Rolls Royces, along with various other cars over the years. When he fell ill and could no longer drive, he transferred the Ferraris to a storage facility for safe keeping. Upon a few missed rent payments, the Ferraris were moved outdoors where they remained for about 15 years. By the time the legal red tape was cleared up and the family of the attorney was finally able to claim the cars, there were only 11 in the field. Both Rolls Royces and two of the Ferraris were missing. Out of the remaining 11 cars, nine have titles and they range from a Mondial to Testarossa to 308, 328 and 348 sports cars.
Unfortunately (as you would expect) none of the cars were drivable when claimed by the family. Engine compartment conditions ranged from not great to fairly poor. The dust and debris are pretty easily cleaned up but damage from critters can cause major issues, especially when it comes to chewed wires. Good news is the Silodrome article indicates most of the cars have now been sold to good homes and the cars are on their way to being back on the road again.
Do any of these cars jump out to you as your favorite? If you could only rescue one, which one would it be?
what a shame.
some ugly women never get men & some Sexy women get all the men they want…I agree with you – we don’t have a fair system…we should surgically alter the sexy women to look ugly-this way everyone is equal.
Life isn’t fair, and the government can’t do anything to remedy that.
No …..wait!….wait!…. Surgically alter the ugly women to look sexy. That way we all get hot babes! That’s equality.
Atlas just shrugged…
I find it amazing that you all (mostly) are making political comments. Is that not banned here? A nameless similar site banned me a while ago for doing so. (Wonder if that site will run this story, bet not, they don’t want to open the obvious income inequality conversation, they are making too much from the well heeled. Hate to give any of them a conscience) Pat, you are wrong my friend. Whereas we can not help the terminally unattractive, we can partially fix the rigged system where a very few people have so much money that they can do things like this. For starters, lets bring back the unions and put some teeth into the labor laws. Then lets tax ALL forms of making money. All at the same rate. Any tax incentive such as this last tax cut fiasco needs to be directly tied to actual prove able family supporting paying jobs in this country, not just promises that you will do so. I have no problem with one man making a lot of money, but the system in general needs to be reasonably fair for all people. That is how we get America back on track, and that will cure our ailing old car hobby too. Don’t you hate watching fat cats on Barret Jackson auctions throwing out huge numbers for cars that just drive up the price on all cars so most of us are forced out of the hobby? Trust me, those BJ bidders will not even feel the bitter taste of those payments, it is chump change to them, and the trouble is, because so few have so much, the majority struggle to get by.
It’s not a perfect system, but it’s better than any system which allows others to tell us what do do with our own money.
So you don’t pay taxes then? Because where I live in North America, I am told how to spend a lot of my money
Steve, look at other parts of the world where they pay around what we do in taxes, yet get far more benefits and have a much higher happiness index, plus they all live longer. You need to expand your info gathering away from a small section of the media and even beyond that, just start looking around for yourself. It a’int pretty my friend. Many of us are doing well now, but if the boss decides to ship our jobs over seas or the like, how long before we are in the same boat as many others? We need some assurances that are (or should be) provided by the government that we will have some economic stability in our lives. I am not taking about give away things, I am talking about economic fairness through the legal system that is for the majority, not the well heeled and connected minority.
Last I heard, Uncle Sam tells us what to do with our money, yet does not care if we agree on how he spends it. All told, he takes about half of what I earn.
Actually it is a pretty fair system. The “yutz” went to Law school and became successful. He gets to do whatever he wants to do with HIS cars. Obviously things went south after the “yutz” got too sick to use them.
Sorry, any other profession, I’d tend to agree with you, but I have no love for lawyers. Remember the 3 Stooges Law Firm? Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe.
It hurts to see if you’re a car lover, but would we be as upset if it were a field full of Yugos? Pintos? Vegas? I wouldn’t be as upset if a famous comic book were stolen as I would if someone took a Vermeer or Van Gogh.
Hoarders follow the golden rule – he who has the gold makes the rules. It was his money (until it evidently ran out) and he could spend it any way he liked.
Most of us are highly enamored of our automotive possessions but most of us understand that we are merely caretakers, preserving them for the next lucky person to enjoy.
I passed “my” 1995 Corvette on the road the other day. The new owner waved and I felt good that he was enjoying it as much as I did. The car looked good and I miss it a little, sort of like seeing an old girlfriend’s picture on Facebook. On the other hand I love my new Corvette. And the girl I married.
In all honesty , it doesn’t really bother me too much – I’m a car lover , but these kind of exotic sports cars just don’t do anything for me . On top of that, all of these cars will be purchased by people with huge wallets and will be restored. I was more upset when I heard about that guy out west that took all those trade ins and just parked them out in his back field ! Some of those cars would be saved , but many weren’t big money or popular cars and probably ended up as a parts car – at best .
Actually , none of these cars look like they have been sitting outside for 15 years , the tops show no rot , there’s no algae or debris stuck to them like you’d expect , unless someone power washed them.
There was a collector back where i come from that was a Mercedes Benz agent for 60 to 70 years. During that time every car that he took as a trade-in was parked in a field, on his farm outside of town. He figured that in the future they would be worth a lot of money so he employed so called security guards to care for over 700 cars. Eventually I was contacted to see if I wanted to buy them ALL! He didn’t want to break the collection. I drove over 500 miles to view the cars but every one I checked on had pieces missing from the engine, interior and even tools. Evidently over the years his security guards had been selling parts to anybody that enquired through the security fence. When I went back to the seller and explained what I had found he was dumbfounded, jumped in his car and took off for the farm to check out my story as he was convinced that I was joking. He told me that he trusted his staff so had never been to check up on the cars as from the outside they all looked original. Later I heard that he had all of his security staff jailed, had sold up the entire collection to a scrap merchant, closed his MBenz dealership and retired to his coastal apartment.
There is a property near me, with a condemned house, tilted chicken shack, a Jeep CJ, and FOUR Yugos sitting in the weeds. I don’t suspect their fate will be very good.
He missed a payment on his storage… these cars were no longer his… but apparently his family had enough money and/or power to get most of them back…
The four stolen/missing cars are probably stashed in another unit at the storage facility… taxes collected by the facility owner.
A car collection is no different than any other assets, you need to make plans to transfer ownership upon your death… seems a lawyer should have that.
so your a lawyer and you couldn’t put them into a family members name ?
so 6 figures turns into 5 …. strange story. strange family !!! 11 exotic cars turned into junk. sucks man /sucks !!
I’m not seeing a lot of junk in that field…
We really don’t know the whole story yet, but, I’m guessing, that when you’re not expecting to get sick and you do, you may have other things to worry about than making sure your 15 cars are in good hands after you die. Hell, maybe he wasn’t expecting to die, even after he realized how ill he actually was.
Never been in a Ferrari, closest I’ve ever been is one at a car show. I expect no matter the condition that the costs of getting one back on the road could easily match the national debt. The article said the former owner was initially into Corvettes, they would be easier IMO to get back onto the road than one of these.
People just need to work harder ..
I love 348’s so that would have been my choice.
It’s called capitalism and I like it
I’ve seen many a deal like this, my guess, the family didn’t know about the cars until it was too late. I’ve bought many a Porsche from a widow who didn’t know the car existed until she started getting storage bills.
Really? You’ve bought many Porsche’s that way? Really?
No, I can see that happening. When you pay too much for an old car, many will not tell the wife.
The storage place probably, moved the missing four cars for unpaid bills, never to be found.
I think this story is 100% fake. There is far too much missing information and the likelihood of it happening as written is 0. I think 13 owners just got together, haphazardly parked their cars in a field took a photo and laughed at the ensuing story.
Why would any Ferrari owner risk his car by driving it across a bad field just to create a BS story? I have owned Ferraris’ and never, ever, would I drive it into a field as shown for any amount of money, just for a few pictures.
Not sure if it is fake, but something does seem fishy. Florida? Texas? Either way they should be full of snakes and mice. If in Florida, then the moss should be growing on them quickly. I left a car outside in an otherwise well kept yard and despite what I thought to be pretty good preventive measures, I had severe mice problems after only a year or so. These cars seem too clean, the weeds not high enough. 15 years, not a chance. The paint is too good.
I would be more interested in a field of Vega’s and Pinto’s then these Ferrari’s. I have a history with the Vega’s and Pinto’s. Not sure I even new what a Ferrari was back in the day.
Really odd how this story immediately turned into a debate on social justice on an auto enthusiasts web page. The whole thing looks fishy to me. These could easily be a group of cars carefully parked in a parking lot and camouflaged with some fresh cut greenery. They look way to clean to be abandoned. If it’s on the web it’s probably a hoax.
But as for the original question. That beautiful Testarosa is the car I’d bring home.
Perhaps when so many people have comments that for some reason need to be removed, something touched a nerve in this old car hobby. Perhaps that debate needs to be aired out in the open for the over all good health of the old car hobby so as to insure more universal and long term participation.
Nope, the comments removed had nothing to do with the cars.
The comments I read before removed had everything to do with cars, just the economics about the buying of cars. I agree with Mr Claws, the old car hobby is hurting badly related to excess that some people bump the prices up over. That should be discussed. If the prices were not so high, more of us could partake in the hobby. If less people at the top didn’t hoard (as the case here) we could all be satiated with our old car needs and wants. To me, that would seem like an appropriate topic for this site. We can’t go along with our head in the sand while we watch the hobby disappear from the top.
Instead of focusing on what you can’t afford, maybe you should look at cars that are in your price range. There are still classics out there for every income level. Start at the bottom and work your way up. If you don’t have enough cash to buy a $2k car then maybe you need to focus on making money first. Get a part-time job or sell some stuff from around the house. Desirable cars have always taken more work to get. If everyone could afford a Ferrari, they wouldn’t be special anymore, now would they?
Mr M. Not many 2K cars around, and if they are, not exactly the stuff of dreams. Look what has happened to Chevelles, Barracudas, even frumpy Mopars. Of course the high performance rare stuff will be higher priced, but even the standard two doors that have the same body are mostly out of reach because some people have the means of almost six figures to restore/pay for these cars. Should they be 1000 dollar cars like in 1980, no, but should they be ten times what they were adjusted for inflation? I feel a fairly rust free 318 2 door Dodge should be under 10K, then the average middle class guy could have one. Any more then that and the kids won’t get fed and clothed. Sorry if the anger that simmers just below the surface of many of your readers boils over once in a while. If things do not straighten out, most of your readers will go away and so will your fine website. There are only so many of the big boys with big bucks and the have nots will get tired of looking at what they can not have, they will forget the subject rather then be depressed when reminded. BTW, working an extra job is unrealistic, these numbers are like small mortgages. Those that have the cars of their dreams either had a huge financial windfall or got them 30 years ago and held onto them. The younger people will never be able to afford them, I am afraid you will have an ever shrinking audience for your site. Too bad, it is a real nice site far as I can tell.
I agree with Jesse 100% on this. Sure I cannot afford a Bugatti or 2017 Viper (My dream car) but I am good with that. I am glad some people can so that every once in a blue moon I can enjoy looking that piece of art. Speaking of art… A Picasso or Rembrandt cost a fortune, so what? Buy a nice looking piece from a local artist for a small fraction of the price. You don’t need a big account to buy pride.
I just looked on my local c-list for cars between 1000-2500. You may be surprised what you can get. Near me is a decent 944, Volvo Bertone, Dodge Rampage Shelby clone, A dart 360, many decent looking 70’s era trucks, etc.
We all just need to be realistic. I know what I can do, and I appreciate others that can do better.
@36 Packard – There are a ton of affordable classics out there! I quit whining about what I couldn’t afford long ago and I’ve owned dozens of awesome cars since. Right now there’s a 1988 BMW 325is in the shop that we only paid $1,500 bucks for. It’s in great shape and is a ton of fun to drive!
Josh and I are relatively young and we have owned survivor cars, sports cars, muscle cars, you name it, and they have all been in the $5k and under range. Here’s just a few: ’69 Torino, ’73 Porsche 914, ’68 Nova, ’74 Duster, ’71 MGB GT, ’28 Model A, ’65 Mustang, ’79 Camaro. These cars were all nice drivers that provided a ton of entertainment for little money.
So, you most definitely don’t need six figures to own a cool car. You just got to hunt harder and be more open-minded. Instead of a Chevelle, look for a Nova. If you want a Mopar, get a Dart. Don’t buy rust buckets or other people’s projects and you might even come out on top.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about with the “shrinking audience” slight. The site is growing fast with no signs of slowing down! People love classic cars and as I said, there’s one out there for every budget. Stop being the victim and you’ll be surprised how many great cars are within your reach!
Id go for the Testarossa, i love the lines and that flat 12 sound is incredible!
Hey! Love it or Leave it! lol
And there are honest lawyers………..unfortunately the stupidity, cupidity, negligence and animal tendencies of human beings tends to create situations which we settle in courts of law. Though a bullet between the eyes might be just as settling but more disruptive of our increasingly broken social norms.
As Pogo was wont to say.We is the problem. Others profit from our problems.
What a load this story is
sad
I don’t consider these cars “abandoned” since someone was aware of them the entire time. The word “neglected” seems more appropriate.
This has nothing to do with any “system”….or what is “fair”.
It has everything to do with the simple fact that these cars were parked outside because payments were reported as not being paid. Kudos to the owners of the storage facility. We should appreciate the fact that it appears their rules are applied equally…..Yugo or Ferrari, Lawyer or blue collar, it shouldn’t matter…..you don’t pay, you lose the service.
Bogus story or not its not too cool to besmirch a dead man because of his profession, I will agree that for some a 100 lawyers on a sinking ship is a good start but I have met some truly nice honorable lawyers, in fact one was a good friend. These cars were stored in a secure warehouse not a storage unit and from what I read a “friend” of the lawyers was supposed to keep the rent up, he didn’t do that for one reason or another, and the cars were moved to a field. I wonder if there was any rent paid for their outdoor storage? Strange story for sure, we wouldn’t be talking about it if they were Chevy Vegas or Ford Pintos. Some times I question myself why I subscribed to this site because it seems that there are an awful lot of crystal balls being used to ascertain cars condition thousands of miles away from a few crappy pictures. Plus the feeling put forth by people negatively commenting that every seller is a con man, or woman trying to take someone over the hurdles, it ain’t always so. Someone once told me to beware of people calling someone else crooked because those are usually the crooks themselves. Have a good day,,,,,,!
There is a lot full of Ford Mavericks somewhere along a state route at the Tennessee-Alabama line leading into Madison, Alabama. Totally different story but fun to see so many in one place. The owner has a story for each car, and of course every one of his Mavericks decays further and further each time I pass by. Hoarding at its worst.
I’m a big fan of old and interesting vehicles, and a lawyer. Not a rich one, but a lawyer nonetheless. The practice of law used to be a noble and honorable profession. These days though, you can’t turn on your TV or radio without seeing and hearing lawyers on there with their “sue someone” message. There is a word I use to describe them (also used to describe “ladies of the evening”) that I probably can’t repeat here.
Those “lawyers” disgust me, and give the impression that we’re all like that. We’re not. I take no offense, H.A., and I always enjoy your posts.
I wonder where in Texas this is
Why does pursuing a passion that he could obviously afford make him a “yutz”? Should we classify those who are inadequate earners as “losers”? That wouldn’t be very nice would it?
He is a yutz because you can only drive one car at a time. Just think if he only had a couple, just what the rest of that money could have done. Even if he doesn’t give it to a worth charity, how about to his family? How about a bump in pay for his workers? When we are gone, all we have left is our reputations. A decent man will always be remembered well, but someone who was given plenty in life and was selfish with his excess will not be remembered well. Andrew Carnage has a ton of libraries around the nation with his name on them, yet we all remember him for being ruthless and causing a great deal of misery to workers and competitors. Nobel may have founded that prize with his name on it, yet he is still remembered for making war far more horrific. When I meet my maker someday, I want the conversation to be pleasant. If others feel differently, go ahead, take your chances, spin the dice. Let me know how it works out.
Regardless of circumstances and choices, the man had a great collection and it likely brought him joy until the end….ultimately for him, it served its intended purpose.
I think the storage facility would have fared better if they had kept the cars inside and continued efforts to contact the family for the unpaid rent. Those cars would have been a lot more valuable if they had been kept inside until the family could retrieve them. Those weren’t exactly Fords and Chevvies that were stored and would have carried a lot more value if they had been kept inside.
It all depends on the storage laws in that particular state. If they do not allow “recovery” for unpaid bills, then to be punitive might make them set an example, so to speak.
But when you are rich it is call being eccentric. The guy was probably some rich old codger and was growing more senile by the day. The fact that he kicked off quickly just reinforces my point. Too bad he didn’t get a guardian before all of this. That of course wouldn’t have made the money any better spent, it just would have ended up in the hands of some snotty younger family member, but at least I wouldn’t have had to read this and get all bummed out over the state this nations inequality has sunk too.
Some comment threads have been removed because a few of you took it too far. Remember guys – “No profanity, politics, or personal attacks.”
We don’t like to do it, but we will delete your comments if you break the rules.
Speaking of ‘outdoor parking’, there are hundreds of Volkswagen buses/vans sitting on a concrete parking area in Pulaski Virginia… Don’t know the background story though… a sight to see.
I believe you mean Insurance Auto Auctions lot, 1250 E Main St, Pulaski, VA 24301
Maybe the little forest animals rubbed them down with Zymol and Lexol every few months? That’s about the only way some of them would still look like this if they were outside as long as claimed! Some look a bit crusty but some look near mint.
I just went back over the pictures and this whole story is Bull Tweet – – -Look very closely at the surrounding weeds – – -the open shot with some leaves and twigs placed on the cowl and a few sprinkled on the engine – – where is all the weeds that should have grown up inside the engine compartment(s) – – – and the weeds would have buried the cars in 15 years with dead foliage and some fresh green stuff like we see in the picture,
Obviously the clowns that put this together never worked as set designers in Hollybrood .
Nuff Said !
Guess I was one of the offenders, sorry Jesse. No malice intended.
You may not have been but when we delete one comment with replies, it deletes the whole thread.
Never apologize for speaking your mind if those thoughts are well thought out and come from the heart.
After taking another look and going to the silodrome.com pics it does appear the cars are more weather worn but still seems unbelievable. But in the end the cars went to good homes anyway.
The two interesting questions to be answered are
1. Were the missing cars stolen or sold by the warehouse owner to bridge the warehousing fees?
2. Once the payments had been resumed the cars remained on the field. So what was the owner actually paying for? In this case I definitely would sue “the ex friend”
The one thing I did bring up was that if the original owner still had the paperwork for the cars that were missing would that not infer that whoever has the cars now for all intents and purposes has a stolen car?
Any members here of the legal profession that can answer that?
Further reference to the comments about 6-figure cars and the audience for bargain vintage special interest cars. Each Friday before I turn off my PC for the weekend I do a local Craigslist search for cars, 1946-1984 under $5000. Lots of potential, wonderful entry-level collectors car in my opinion. Just in the past 6 months there have been numerous one-owner survivor 1960s Galaxies, a Buick Reatta, Renault Fuego, Corvairs, Falcons, desirable full-size Mopar and Pontiacs, a few 1940s-1950s Plymouth coupes, even low mileage MGs and Triumphs. All drivers, all titled, all seemingly being sold by owners who know what they are talking about. Nothing roached out.
I’m sure the storage yard had a contract for him to sign, you don’t pay…you give up your stuff. life’s tuff, too bad he wasn’t a little better at planning, wasn’t like he was short of cash.