Ferrari stolen in Italy 18 years ago recovered at Peace Bridge, U.S. Attorney looking for owner

With and without "tar".
Compare.

Marcel Massini

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I guess at some point in the past rather than drill the rivets out to remove the vin plate ( to neutralise its ID for a period I imagine) someone has ground a straight line up the plate to the right of the rivet or mangled the hole in an attempt to drill it, and when it was later put back they used a bit of black silicon to hide the slice mark/damage between the plate and the original hole! I suppose its the same the other end of the plate.

 

I can confirm there is tar on the right side of the chassis tag as well.
(the comparison photo I posted in post #51 (second photo, below, and without red arrow) is not from the subject car, just to make that very clear).

Marcel Massini

 

At the time of theft in Imola, in March 2003, F50 #105810 was already owned by the fourth (4th) Italian owner. Bergamo-based dealer Autoexotic di Paolo Provenzi (the victim) was not the first owner. All four early owners were in Italy. Somehow (following the theft) the car went to Japan. While there it was maintained (between 2012 and 2016) by a shop named "Verde Garage Co. Ltd." located in Hokuto in the Yamanashi prefecture.

Marcel Massini

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No relation to recent F40 finding but at least they have used the same font type of the vin stamping, albeit not quite as sharp and of the quality of the original in the comparison........ I assume the photo doesn’t show the other side to protect the I’d of a car they had copied, but did they only change one vin plate as the steering column, and the door tag, seem to be the originals. ?

 

Here's more:

Stolen in Imola, Italy, 30 March 2003.
Entering Japan June 2003.
25 June 2003 registered with the first "owner" in the Nagasaki prefecture, Japan.
11 July 2003 with the second "owner" (a car dealer) in the Nagoya prefecture, Japan.
31 March 2004 with the third "owner" (a car dealer) in the Gifu prefecture, Japan.
9 July 2004 with the fourth "owner" in the Nagano prefecture, Japan.
7 October 2014 odometer was showing 16'900 kms.
November 2017 offered for sale by anonymus in Japan for 200 million Yen and with 17'000 kms. That was US$ 1'770'000 plus 3% commission.
28 November 2018 odometer was showing 17'200 kms.
3 December 2018 with the fifth "owner" (a car dealer) in the Tochigi prefecture, Japan.
1 October 2019 with the exporter in the Nerima prefecture, Japan.
The car was registered and de-registered for export on the same day (1 October 2019).

This is the car:
http://www.dream-auto.jp/stock/entries.php?ID=354&CATE=0&MAKERSELECT=1

Marcel Massini

 

If you look at the one with the black goo, and how it should really be, you can see the centre of the rivet is raised, this makes that type hard to drill out and the drill bit often slips and elongates the hole in the plate as a result, which is my guess what happened in this case, and the goo was used to hide this damaged hole when it was later put back in place. The other plate uses normal rivets with a hollow centre which are easy to drill out without damage, and the steering wheel plate would be easy to pry off.

I have restored numerous cars over the years where such have had to be removed as part of the work.

They were probably all removed after the theft to get the car on the ship out of Europe then re applied once in Japan to get it registered there.

 

The main newspaper in Italy published this story today:


https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CtLneR9RK14J:https://motori.corriere.it/motori/attualita/21_marzo_22/ferrari-2-milioni-dollari-proprieta-contesa-caso-tribunale-a06534be-8a62-11eb-82d5-215578033673.shtml+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=it

 

If the Florida guy bought it from a "reputable" seller......there should be no problem in getting his money back. No way he ends up with the car. It either goes back to the original owner or the US auctions it off to the highest bidder.

 

Thanks yeah I’d noticed the rivets are not normal pop rivets, but just thought they had bonded in place a made up vin plate over the top of original ( or removed original) but couldn’t see what they had done regarding other 2 vin no’s.

Yeah makes sense to remove them and reapply as you say due to local laws regarding vehicle ID.

 

Basically the same story as originally posted in English (post #1, Buffalo news).
Nothing new here.

Marcel Massini

 

A good breakdown by Steve Lehto on how this will probably be settled in court.

 

Sammy Hagar got scammed on this exact car. His manager wired the funds for the Ferrari to Switzerland and never got the car. Dwayne..if you're out there....

 

Proof please.
Scammed? What kind of scam? Denying the theft? Or what?
Scammed by whom?

Marcel Massini

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/sammy-hagars-f40-story.141837/

SH: I bought a car for a million dollars that I never got. An F-40 (Ferrari), about 1987, they weren't allowed in America -- no exhaust system, Plexiglas windows. I never got the car. I gotta be careful what I call these people. Some mobsters in Italy took an F-40 ... They built a showroom in Napoli. They showed brokers in Switzerland and sold these cars to people, the president of Toyota, myself, etc. They took the orders and never delivered.

I had a friend in the White House get a permit to get it shipped. Paid the money, 4-5 days later, car doesn't show. My broker went to the plane, actually saw it shipped, but it was being shipped to the Japanese guy who really owned it. After I spent a million, my guy said, Can you afford this? I said, yeah, and they said walk away.

 

Holy crap. I'm a lucky sob.

When I look back what I did and didn't get burnt I thank my lucky stars.

 

I too hope the car is soon returned to the Provenzi family. As Marcel and others have posted, a stolen car is a stolen car. (Counterfeit money is also not the recipient’s.)
I’ve had my 550 in Italy for 22 years now and there are stories galore of stolen Ferraris, particularly in the early 2000’s. One got no further than the hotel two blocks from the factory while the proud new owner was checking in!

 

He knew something was fishy from day one. Thats WAY under market for the car. If the price alone doesn't tell you its a scam I don't know what does.

 

He bought it in 2019 for $1.435m (in Sept 2019). What was the market price for a Euro spec F50 at that time? I know recently they've gone up, but what about 1.5 years ago? Guess it's been stored at some US govt facility since Dec 2019...who knows if it has been run since.

 

Not the same car that SH is talking about. An F40 and an F50 is not the same model.
Esteemed fchatter Rick Weston is wrong in post #63.
First known case of a stolen F40 happened 4 August 1989 (Chassis #80713). SH is wrong here ("about 1987").
The subject car is an F50 with S/N 105810 and was stolen in Italy in 2003, not 1987.
And it didn't have plexiglas side windows anyway.

Marcel Massini

 

One reason is that there are so many exotics in northern Italydue to wealthy tourists from the north who vacation and own homes there. Also Trieste is a convenient port to shuttle the cars out of the country to the east.

 

I believe they were selling for way more money than that in 2019, possibly 2.5 mil and up

 

Exactly, the moral of this story.

 

The stolen car should be returned to the owner who has suffered the results from the theft.


My guess the decision will emulate previous courts rulings with recovered hi-dollar art.

 

105810:
ANY NEWS??
Has this dispute been settled by now? Car back with Mr Provenzi in Italy, from whom it was stolen?

Marcel Massini