Has the internet made barn finding harder?

I used to look for old Ferraris in the old days, the '80s. maybe there was the internet but I was not online, so I would do it the old fashioned way, run ads and then write letters to those that responded, etc. But now that there is this new instant way to find things out, I find the prospect of looking daunting only because now with the slightest of clues someone could beat you to a car if you didn't have it nailed down. I'll give a real life example because I don't have any investment capital at present and if it results in a lead, so be it; to the brave go the spoils.

CASE IN POINT: Around 1973 I went to a motorcycle shop at 480 N. Western owned by a guy named Bob Kountz who was the King of the Vincent HRD motorcycle world, and I noticed two old Fifties Ferrari coupes in a pile of rubble at the corner of his shop. I asked how he got those and he told me he used to work for Jack Nethercutt, a museum owner, who one day got disgusted at one thing or another and just gave some cars away including those two to him. I never went back to the shop and occasionally rue that mistake.

Now in the old days tracking down this cold lead would first involve writing to find if Mr. Kountz is still alive; if not, does he have relatives, and, if so, do the relatives know where the cars went, yadda yadda. But now in 2010 if I just tell this story at the table among Ferraristi, I think some would take out their ipad or ipod or whatever other electronic gizmo they have and in a few minute be hot on the trail. In other words, the weeks or months long lead time I used to enjoy in tracking down a car is no longer there, you have to have the car sewed up before you can even mention it in public....

Or do I just sound bitter because I am no longer in the game...?

 

Part of the answer I was searching for has been posted now; that with the internet, anybody with an object of value can go to the internet, and write in EBay and then the object they have to see what they currently sell for. This could apply to something like a Nikon f3 Photomic or a Ferrari. Prior to the internet, if they didn't know about the Ferrari Market letter, and they had an old Ferrari they wouldn't know what that model is currently going for.

But the nub of the question is now, with the speed and worldwide reach of the internet, I contend it is no longer possible to put out feelers on a Ferrari barn find you have found without risk of it being bought out from under you. In the old days of letters, there was some time delay, you could write someone and say "I found an old Ferrari in Port Huron Michigan, blah blah" and the guy might write you back weeks later. But now with the net, if you ask someone something online, that person could forward the letter to ten people and a few hours later, a thousand people would know there is an old Ferrari possibly for sale in Pt. Huron Michigan. Some with good data bases would then check their lists of Ferrari club membes in the past and narrow it down and start making calls and the next time you call the car owner he might say :"Oh, suddenly I had a rash of calls about the car and sold it to the third guy that called."

The good part for the owners of old and valuable things is that now they aren't selling something in isolation--they can get offers more in concert with the general going price. The bad thing is that as a barn finder, you are forced more to buy "a pig in a poke" , buy blind, can't check the car's history out because with the speed of the internet, as soon as anyone finds out you have a tug on the line (fish wise) they can zero in on what you've found and beat you to it.

Maybe I am just lamenting the old days of when there was less competition but I wonder if anyone else feels that they dare not ask a question about a car they've found for fear it will be swept out from under them?

 

So far from what I've read lately in CAVALLINO and other magazines, about the e-bay car, the burned out 250GT series I spyder, an old coupe (I haven't heard the story of the Tour de France yet) it appears that Tom Shaughnessy is the most successful barn finder because he is continually updating his knowledge of old Ferraris and thus, when he comes across one, he has only to consult his own data base. And now that he has made money on the first few, he has the money to at least make an offer. If it isn't enough, then he probably can just dial the phone (do we say dial now that phones don't have dials?) to call some wealthy collector who is only to happy to send a check.

He did tell me on the ebay car he had a tip from someone else that the car being offered had a Ferrari chassis underneath--I didn't read the story about the purchase but I guess the original ad didn't reveal it was a Ferrari. It is a similar case to the Dean Jeffries MantaRay. That is just an old custom car to many but to a Maserati purist it is a Maserati GP car underneath. When that car changes hands it will be interesting to see how many seconds pass before the custom car body is thrown away...

Interestingly there is another exotic car dealer in the Orange County area who has been building a data base for eons but he doesn't find as many barn finds as Chaughnessy. I can only conclude that having an emporium open to the public ties him to the office so he can't go off on missions that may be fruitless to poke in barns. We only hear about Shaughnessy's successes, but you can bet for every Ferrari he finds there's a lot of
'gee, I didn't know it was a kit car," or "My uncle told me it was a Ferrari" yadda yadda. Like when I used to go look at Rolls Royces only to find an Austin Princess with a Rolls Royce grille.

Another ace in the hole that Tom Shaughnessy has , and I don't know if he still bothers with it but it was to sell old Borrani wheels. In the Cobra world. Lynn Park had a business selling newly minted old-looking Cobra wheels and thus many owners of old Cobras would come to him for a price and then he would end up buying their car ("Fred, you don't have enough money to restore that car proper") which he is why he has eleven original Cobras (including some in original barn find condition which he calls "dirtbag" cars). So that would be step 1 if you wanted to try to compete with Shaughnessy, in addition to all the knowledge in the world about what's out there, you'd have to have something that old Ferrari owners want--like wheels, gauges, engines, transmissions, in short a little junkyard.
You have to have cheese to catch mice, etc.