That is classic! Could just imagine the conversation... "as we approached the turn, the right hand ducked to the inside of the left hand..." and his wife is thinking..."Yeah, yeah, here we go again." Thanks for sharing those photos.
Do we know if the "Hedge fund" bought just the cars or also the considerable collection of memorabilia, documents, models? I feel sad that the cars are no longer there as I live about three hours drive east of Le Mas du Clos,St Avit de Tardes and will never forget my two visits there, in April of 1998 with the Tour Auto where we got to visit the collection and I first met Bardinon briefly. Then about 15 minutes after driving away, with the wife and children of a US competitor in his 250LM, I found a Renault 21 upside down on the road with windows broken, it was Benedict Wang, brother of Hong Kong GTO owner Brandon, with 2 English mechanics and an American. I helped them sort things out with the Gendarmes "No he can't come to the Gendarmerie on Monday he will be in Hong Kong in 2 days" (!) and then we drove off to the La Rochelle finish, we were 7 or 8 in the car...and my head was full of the wonders of the private Shangri La we had just visited... Then a couple of weeks later I was back on May 1st when as mentioned before Bardinon pulled out 0870 for my Cavallino article shoot. A few years later, I believe in 2002 in Louisiana Jim Spiro let me drive his 1962 Le Mans winning one off ex Mas du Clos 330TRI #0808 on a small circuit in bayou country near Napoleonville which was an awesome moment: driving a monument of motorsport history and of course that reminded me of seeing it in the collection. Often since my family has had a place on a hill with a 150km view here in 1970 I have looked west thinking over there in those hills is Charade and over there a little beyond the horizon is that magic place Le Mans du Clos...now Pierre and his wife have been gone for 3 or 4 years, the circuit's use has been blocked by the French bureaucracy and the cars are gone...it is as if a light went out in the sky....a whole era has ended... I broker cars myself since writing does not exactly pay decently so I am not going to blame the hedge fund but I just hope the cars get shown and not buried in some private collection to boost the ego of some plutocrat.
I should not write before I have my coffee: to be clear we were NOT in the 250LM (6051 I test drove for Cavallino prior to that, at Moroso in Florida) but in a station wagon with the wife of its owner, 2 kids and the 4 chaps we plucked from the ditch.
According to this French article of today: https://www.francebleu.fr/amp/infos/faits-divers-justice/le-tribunal-de-gueret-doit-dire-a-qui-appartenait-la-voiture-la-lus-chere-au-monde-1528310840 all remaining Ferraris of the Bardinon Collection have been sequestered/seized/confiscated/blocked for a potential future sale as long as the various law suits are going on between the three Bardinon kids. This according to Mr. Philippe Lefaure, attorney of Jean-François Bardinon. Marcel Massini
Wow...so buying for portfolio diversification and investment. Great. How many other collections are purchased simply for this reason rather than by true auto enthusiasts? Edit: I see the hedge fund prelim info was incorrect, but my question still stands. Any ideas?
That all makes perfect sense. Would be easiest to sell (perhaps publicly?) to get an absolute value because otherwise much of the value is abstract, especially cars like #0396AM, 0816, 0860 or 0870. That still only assesses the value of the cars, what about the death taxes, duties, funds already paid out, property and everything else that needs to be assessed. I can see why so many US collectors divest their cars to LLCs to manage in perpetuity rather than allow this process to run its course. Will be fascinating to see this play out and see the outcome.