As any car owner will tell you, the worst thing one can do is leave a car parked for long periods. The truth is, that’s only the second worst thing you can do. The worst is undoubtedly leaving it parked outdoors to gather dust and die. In this case, it left high-strung, Italian exotics exposed to the elements in a field.
In a strange and regrettable case that had the internet abuzz nearly a decade back, 11 classic Ferraris were found abandoned in a field in Texas. The story is almost as strange as the one billionaire who forgot he owned an F40.
According to reports from a Ferrari specialist posting on a forum, these cars were part of a collection that was built up over the years by a wealthy attorney who went from collecting Chevrolet Corvettes to European’s finest sports cars.
Apart from a few exotics from Porsche, Lamborghini, and Lotus, to name a few, the collector’s interest was piqued by Ferrari. He went on to acquire 13 of them in total, including a few 308, 328, 348, 400i, and Mondial models. Impressive but far from one a really special Ferrari barn find.
Unfortunately, as these things tend to, the attorney fell ill, and the cars were sent to an acquaintance’s storage facilities. The collection was later left out in the field over disputes regarding payments.
The original owner even tried selling the whole collection as one lot, with an asking price well over $100,000. For anyone familiar with classic Ferraris, they’d know that that price back then was hardly the steal deal.
The cost of restoring even one of these classic thoroughbreds could creep up on that figure. The original owner of the car later passed away, and following legal disputes over his estate, this lot of classic Ferraris was finally broken up and sent off to be restored and sold individually.
A few of these cars have popped up on auction sites over the years, fully restored, of course. Thankfully, these Ferraris seem to have had a happy ending.
