Who was the first owner of your car?

Mine was purchased new by Lino Anthony Saputo (of Saputo Inc.). I suspect it wasn't ordered by him as the car has an October 1994 build date and a June 1995 sale date.

Sold by Luigi Sports Car LTD in Quebec.

Who else has some interesting history on their car?
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Great to see you trace the history. I encourage you to get all the owners identified. Send them some emails to see what cool facts you can uncover. Put them in your binder.

Excited to follow your exploits.

Robb

 

Great topic and beautiful car! Can't wait to see what comes up.

 

Good idea on the emails, I didn't think about that. Not that I would expect a response but I will give it a try!

 

Just recently (last week) sold my 348ts. The original owner was Jerry Bruckheimer.

 

That is a cool first owner to have!

Robb

 

There can be a fine line between messing with someone's privacy and being an enthusiastic owner. The good news is that first owners of these cars tend to still own other Ferrari's so they "get it" with the history of our cars and don't mind a good story about what the car is up to now. I haven't had any bad experiences with Ferrari guys being helpful with info.

You can also try the dealer / sales agents that originally on the car. They will probably still be in contact with the original owner or know who you can ask.

You can also try the chapter officers in the FCAin that state.

Robb

 

My car was a one owner from new. The original owner, from a town in the north of Portugal, called Famalicão, bought the car new from the official Ferrari dealer in Oporto. He kept the car for close to 16 years, racking up the majority of the miles in the first few years of ownership - I bought the car with a fully documented 26.8k miles. The original owner then bought a 360 and only used the 355 very sparingly. Later he bought a Bentley and it was definitely parked and not used. When I first saw the car, it was obvious that it had been sitting for some time, and I was shown paperwork/receipts of just regular fluid and oil changes once a year, but no belts or much driving. The car got the full treatment when I bought it a year and a half ago...I've put 10,000 miles on her since...loved every one of them!

 

Very cool idea!

I am the 3rd owner of my car. I have the original owners details and even a photocopy of the cheque for 92,000 pounds used to pay for the car in January 1992.

The 2nd owner was a famous actor in Hong Kong. I forget his name, he is not familar to me but 'locally' the guy was huge apparently.

I bought it off a guy whom brought it into Australia to sell. He never registered it, so I will claim I am the 3rd owner of it.

I will find my log books and find that name on the that cheque and in the books. It's been 10 years since I looked at those books. I have them here somewhere, won't take long to find them.

I also have the 2nd owners name as there are thousands of dollars of service records with the car with his name written all over them.

 

Very cool thread.

Not the first owner, but I'm told the first guy to drive my Diablo was Mario Andretti, drove it up the coast at the Running of the Bulls.

 

This IS a cool idea for a thread !!.

Mine was the very first (rhd) car imported into the uk when the 355 was launched in 1994. Didn't know this when I bought it, but it was the launch car for the then UK importers - Maranello Concessonaires in Surrey - who had it as their original demo model.

The car has featured in several period motoring publications who road tested it (with great excitement as you could imagine) - copies of which I have been able to obtain over the years, and it was even used by Tiff Needell who tested it for BBC Top Gear in October of that year, all of which is pretty cool. There is a vid for this on this forum which a chap found a year or so back - under the thread "355 future classic" if you want a look

So all in all its been ragged by all an sundry LOL, but it drives and runs really well, but knowing what I do now, I feel I have to "preserve" it even more !!.

Maranello seem to have parted company with it at the end of 1994 with about 6500 miles on the clock - think it went to a football club chairman in London then.

Interesting stuff - well, to me

 

That is so neat!!!

There is a thread on (the late) Luigi Della Grotta:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/canada/355035-r-i-p-luigi-della-grotta.html

Quite a character.

 

Geez that's one heck of a first owner!!!! he's the warren buffet of Quebec.

And the dealer was a personal friend of Enzo and the most colorful and passionate character ever to have a Ferrari dealership.

In Canada, a Luigi car is sold at a premium because Luigi would keep all the owner's manuals, a copy of the key, he made sure you did your service and you got in trouble if you didn't.

Do you have a Luigi sticker on your car? it's a red/orange logo. If you do, don't take it off!

 

My 348 was originally bought by Simon Connolly of the leather firm.
He wanted the car in green but ferrari refused so had it in grey.
He supplied his own leather to Maranello as they didn't use his at the time. After getting the car he had the colour of the leather changed to dark blue and installed an alcantara dash.

My Yellow 355 GTB was bought by Nicola Foulston the former owner of the Brands Hatch motor racing circuit. a quick search reveals -
Her father John, who founded the Atlantic Computers leasing operation, was killed in 1987 while testing a racing car, his great passion.

He also owned circuits, including Brands Hatch. A year after his death, the sale of Atlantic netted £29m for his family trusts. His daughter took over running the racing circuits and led a management buyout of the business in 1995 for £15.5m.

Four years later the Brands Hatch Leisure business was sold for £120m, netting Foulston, 43, £35m. She then left for Switzerland, where she leads a quiet, low-key life.

and that explains in part why it is so expensive to hire Brands for track days!

 

When I was on my search for a 575M and still learning I found one on Ebay that was hit with front end damage I was considering buying and repairing. It was being sold by the second owner
I did a car fax on it and the first owner took meticulous care of the care. It was serviced almost monthly at Ferrari Ft. Lauderdale, being detailed.
I did a title search on the car and it came back belonging to Julio Iglesias.
I have a copy of the title too with his signature on it. His middle name is actually Julio

 

No idea on mine. Ferrari refuses to acknowledge it even exists. Honestly, doesn't surprise me one bit.

 

I'm sure Mario drove a few Diablos in the Running of the Bulls but yours wouldn't happen to be the silver 6.0? I almost bought that car.

 

The Real Deal, Evander Holyfield. He owned my F355 during the infamous Tyson bite


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Lots of great stories!

I sent an email to Saputo Inc. but doubt I will hear anything back.

That was an interesting read about Luigi! I'm going to watch the videos on that thread later tonight. (no sticker on my car).

Gottaloveit- Very cool! I must have watched that 50 times. It's on my rotation of F355 videos so I can remember what they sound like in the winter

 

I too sent an email to Holyfield's people but never heard back.

 

It would be neat to find some period photos of him with the car. Have to admit he has some really nice penmanship!

 

I was VP of the Luigi Club for a while. I've now moved to VP of the Quebec FCA chapter but I remain a member of the Luigi club. You can check out the youtube channel I created, cool videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjP0eNJY_r0phBgyCDetyfQ/videos

Here is a direct link to the feature video we did last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nhtnHc4aaE

(Special thanks to Bernardo66 for helping us get some great footage in order to create these videos)

 

We used his signature to create the membership cards, LOL

This is the "front" and "back" view
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No, mine is the #1 MOMO Edition car. The 1999 Running of the Bulls was its introduction, hence the drive.

 

Some playmate was the 1st owner of mine, can't remember her name she's in vegas now