Story of 250 GT Cabriolet s/n 0799

I find it interesting that Mr. Oliver Weber, the Swiss attorney who represents the supposed victim can only pin down the disappearance of the car within a 5 month period and submitted no specific date for the car's disappearance. The car was reported stolen to the Swiss, yet the car was stolen in Spain. Mr. Weber also indicates that he has a record of the ownership trail up to and including Mr. Hallingby. So the million dollar question is, why wait until now to raise the flag? Something smells here...

 

I agree.

 

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hcu-ferrari-0905,0,5896989.story

 

A 1958 Ferrari reported stolen in Spain 15 years ago was recovered by state police in Sharon. (Connecticut State Police)

SHARON - A rare Ferrari reported stolen in Spain 15 years ago was recovered by state police in Sharon on Thursday.

The 1958 Ferrari 250 PF, valued at between $4 million and $5 million by exotic car enthusiasts, was smuggled into the United States and registered in 1994 in New Jersey under a false Vehicle Identification Number.

The vehicle was sold an transferred multiple times in New Jersey. In 2000, the car was sold for $550,000 to an unsuspecting buyer in Sharon who added it to his collection of exotic vehicles, state police said.

State police said they opened an investigation in June 2008 after receiving information that the car was registered in Connectiuct.

 

Another report from Edmunds inside line on the recovery of the car...

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=131775

 

There are many errors in the Barchetta web site and their information is also not up to date... I don't think they maintain their site at all...

 

I found this pic of the car in the 2005 Greenwich concours d'elegance section of the Barchetta Web site. Copyright on the photo... Also look at the Entry... (copied from the web site: http://www.barchetta.cc/All.Ferraris/events-stories/events/2005/greenwich-concours-d-elegance-greenwich-connecticut/greenwich-concours-d-elegance-greenwich-ct-gallery-1/index.html)

0799GT 250PF Cabriolet 1958 Silver bordeaux LHD Barney Hallingby

It's strange no one realized, with the S/N in display, that the car was stolen...

I've also attached 2 pics from the same concours I found in the internet (copyright: M. Irwin) (not written in the prhotographs)
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Here are the pictures of the car that I took at the 2005 Greenwich Concours. I didn't notice if the ignition switch had been jimmied! ;-)
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I think we are a long way from knowing that this car was "stolen" and not a business dispute originally

 

By the way, an interesting point is that several articles claim that the car was given a false ID in NJ. This is not true. NJ cannot enter a 4 digit VIN into their system. My car's VIN is entered similarly to 0799's, I've made several atempts to correct it but have been told that it isn't worth the trouble.

Regards,

Art S.

 

Sellers remorse?

"Indian giver"?

"Dumbass"?

 

Fact is the car was reported stolen. Otherwise there would not be police involvement as in here. The rest is pure speculation until this case is solved.

 

Agree that there is much yet to be revealed about this.

Mr. Webber's inability to pinpoint a time of theft beyond the five-month window may not be that unusual though. An absentee owner of large cash assets like this may have other priorities and may not notice it missing from a warehouse (or consignment broker). Also, it wasn't easy to track these back in 1993 at the dawn of the web, and if he turned down the insurance settlement, he was on his own in the search.

But by 2000 it was VERY easy to track a car like this online. Between then and now, a simple Google search of "0799 GT" would likely turn up this very car or at least people who knew it. So why did he not discover it hiding in plain sight until now? And why was there no effort made to post its stolen status online, particularly here at F-chat?

More will certainly come to light.

 

but Hallingby lives in CT not in NJ?

 

Did Hallingby know that Ferrari VIN 0799GT was stolen? I think he did.

read this

http://www.registercitizen.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20113534&BRD=1652&PAG=461&dept_id=665579&rfi=6

 

Marco,

I am speaking of the NJ 'fake' VIN that was used for the NJ sales and registrations supposedly to hide the car. The adding of the year to the VIN is standard practice in NJ as the real VIN is too short for NJ's computer system. The car was totally restored at Classic Coach under previous ownership in NJ, it was a very high end restoration not something for a disguise (I saw it at Classic Coach when it was under previous ownership - it was magnificent!). The price Mr. Hallingby paid, at the time, was the going rate for these cars. Also Mr. Hallingby showed that car at prominent shows and had several magazine articles in Ferrari magazines written about it, thus he certainly was not behaving as he knew that his ownership may be in doubt.

To me it is very odd that the car was not recovered for so long as it was never hidden. I suspect that there is a significant piece of the story that has not been made public.

Regards,

Art S.

 

. I thought the basic rule was you were inocent until proven guilty. I would likr to know how the Conn police were persuaded to impound this car. I can see the previous owner in question putting a lean on the car but impounding it??? This is way over the top.It would also be interesting to know if the insurance company had previously paid off on a claim of the car being stolen and to whome it was paid.The estimated price today of over $1mil is "fuzzy math" and there seem to be a lot of un answered questions here. It's unfortune that the current owner has to go thru all of this but I guess the "buyer be ware" theory still has legs. just one man's opinion tongascrew

 

Art,

You are spot on. There appears to be no hiding of facts under Barney's ownership, and I am sure he is being very cooperative with the investigation. As far as Barney knowing that the car was stolen when he bought it, I believe he did not. He is a longtime, astute, collector of classic automobiles. I am sure he and his advisors are aware of the vagaries of the classic car market and were careful to check the provenance of the cars he has bought. From my quarter something does smell fishy.

Of course, I am biased because Barney and I have been friends for 40 years.

Sam

 

great report, i got pleasure to read it.

 

Maybe the timing has to do with the fact that cars of the same variant have sold for so much money in recent times?

 

Ditto. The idea that Barney knew that this car was stolen or hid it away is silly.

 

Agree! The car had been sold before in the US. What would have lead anyone to assume that the car was still stolen and wanted internationally?

Car is probably sitting out in the weather in a police impound lot...I hope not! Hopefully the police put a boot on her and left her in his garage until this gets sorted out!

 

Where is it written in the warrant that the VIN was faked in NJ? My interpretation of page 3.2, paragraph 10 of the warrant is, that the manipulation was done in CT (by Hallingby). Only the Connecticut registration certificate is mentioned in paragraph 10. This is suspicious! Am I wrong?

Regards

Marco

 

Agree. But as with all disasters, it's seldom one thing that leads to the catastrophe. A succession of problems come together: Barney or his advisors may have skimped on researching provenance in their excitement. The lack of a VIN suiting New Jersey's computer system seems to have demanded a change (adding "58" or omitting "GT"), making it more difficult to track in a database. The Swiss owner took on responsibility for the search himself when he passed on the insurance settlement and, clearly, let time get away from him.

Sadly, the one who tipped the first domino (the one who stole/fraudulently sold the PF) appears to have gotten away years ago.

 

Marco,

The end of Paragraph 10, which addresses the CT DMV documentation of the car, states: [It should be noted that the registration certificate shows that the VIN of the vehicle was first printed as "FER079958". This was then crossed out and "0799" was written beside it. The VIN Verification Certificate shows the correct VIN of 0799GT.]

My point is that the initial registration in CT almost certainly was generated using, and therefore matches, the paperwork generated in NJ (discussed in Paragraph 11). Which was corrected based on visual inspection of the car as seen in the VIN Verification Certificate. Thus the incorrect initial registration came from NJ. As stated before, based on personal experience, this VIN modification is standard practice in NJ.

Regards,

Art S.