Hi Joe, No special custodian unfortunately. Maybe there is a business there for someone. The chain of custody pretty much looks like this: - transporter from home to airport (your local towing company or authorized dealer etc) - at the airport the cargo company (in my case Cargolux) receives the car. - before leaving JFK the car had a dangerous good inspection, where they went through the whole car including all the bags of spares, took out a lithium starter pack and took out a cigarette lighter tire pump because the thought it had a battery in it (it did not). - next customs inspects the car and the paperwork, you need to provide all your info, registration, title (which doesn't exist for this car as it's too old for the state of CT to issue one), the original sales invoice (even though it was > 10 years ago, go figure) and a bunch of other stuff - then cargolux is responsible for the car until it arrives at the specified destination which in this case in London Heathrow. Now to make matters more complicated, it flew from JFK to Luxembourg (I guess the clue is in CargoLUX) and then it gets trucked on the same pallet it flew on, to Heathrow, where it clears customs and gets delivered to the clearing agent over there (in my case Autofreight) - Autofreight then give the car to the local carrier (in my case the fine gentlemen from DK Engineering who will prep the car and take it to Salon Prive). - I'm going to miss that show but should arrive in time to start the rally on Wednesday Sep 6th. At which point I will be in charge of the car until I deliver back to Autfreight for the return journey. - What a pain in the ass I hear you say. "Yes!" is my reply. - The way home hopefully will be a little simpler as I should be able to fly with Virgin directly from Heathrow to JFK.
So here is the info from the Caroglux website. If I am reading the last line correctly, car will leave by truck from Luxembourg 3 am tomorrow and arrive at Heathrow at 4 pm. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Mark, I don't know if you keep a journal with records like the detail presented above, but it would be really neat to do just that. I could imagine looking back at such notes and records at some point. It's such an amazing car, it would be awesome to document its amazing adventure. Im very excited for you! Keep posting and be safe.
Solo, but I have a couple of friends that are going on the rally. After the 3 days I am assuming I will have some new friends too!
By no means is this an advertisement for the following, but after reading the gut wrenching account of the theft of Markus' 250 GT/E s/n #2281GT from just outside the Nurburgring back in '14 (which I believe has yet to be recovered), I did a bunch of research into GPS trackers. While this scenario is ultimately what insurance is for, there is no one on this forum that can argue that an insurance payout is preferable to getting your car back! After looking at numerous options (and purchasing a few of them for testing), I ended up narrowing the solution down to the 'Trace' unit by Spot (www.findmespot.com) of which I now have one of on EACH & EVERY one of my cars as well as a separate one on my trailer (call me paranoid). The units are cheap (about $100), 100% sealed, watertight, work across the globe and their annual monitoring fees are $149/year ... I don't know of ANY insurance policy with fees that inexpensive (obviously this it is NOT a replacement for insurance). They are powered by 4 x 'AAA' batteries and if I use the 'Ultimate' batteries by Energizer with the unit set to ping the satellite every 60 minutes (you can choose to have it ping down to every 5 minutes for the same monitoring fee or down to 180 seconds for an increase in annual monitoring costs), they provide between 24-30 months of continuous tracking before having to change the batteries. Not sure if anyone else has used them or perhaps has found a different solution/option, but I know that these are fantastic little units of which I have yet to have to employ (thankfully).
Wow Mark, I admire your spirt of adventure and love of life and fun! You will have a great time and definitely make some new friends! John, that looks like a great option and it might be worth it for someone (wink wink) to add one or even two to their precious vintage car.
Well, maybe some of friends in Europe are being ripped off ? Besides, perhaps mistakenly, I was told decades ago the concept having been originally invented/developed in Europe, in Finland to be specific.
#0895gt arrived at Heathrow an hour ago. Drive from Luxembourg (on a truck) took 10 hours. In theory it has been "pre cleared" whatever that means, so hopefullly it can be collected by DK Engineering tomorrow. I look forward to seeing a picture of the car in their courtyard. Last time it was there in 2015, on the way back from Maranello, this picture was taken. It's actually one of my favorite pictures of the car, the light seems to be catching the curves just right. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Amazing! Too early for a weather forecast but when I think of England in September (or any month) I think of rain - same in Europe? Are the elements and potential bad weather a concern?
Apart from bringing a big bottle of RainX I don't really know what else to do. Yes I guess the weather is a concern, but I am hoping for the best!
Currently hot and sunny in UK. Forecast for next 15 days looking good but cooler. I was checking weather in Switzerland (where I am going en route to Maranello in a week) and the forecast is very much cooler (10 deg C and lower) with some rain, but Maranello is forecast to be hot and sunny (30 deg C).
Car safely at DK Engineering. Big shout out to James and Harvey for receiving on a bank holiday! After being briefly separated, both car and keys are at DK! I got a call with "uh ... do you know where the keys are?". Prior to shipping a wise friend advised I should zip tie some spare keys inside the car somewhere and as soon as I heard the question I heard his voice ringing in my ears! Anyway the keys were in a pouch that had been left at Heathrow, but the keys have now been reunited with the car much to my relief! Image Unavailable, Please Login
Detailing at DK underway for Salon Prive Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login