Ferrari Transporter ** Warning ** Owners Beware

I would like to share details of a couple instances that appears ( to me ) to be happening more often
than I am comfortable with, I will share a couple below for context:

Situation 1 :
Owner has "a guy" that he uses to transport his Ferrari from home to Dealership and back to his home.
Other than receiving and releasing the Ferrari, the Dealership has nothing to do with transportation logistics.
Driver drops off Ferrari, services are performed, owner lets Dealership know that his transporter will be there to pick up Monday morning. Transporter arrives Monday morning, request the Ferrari with client name and vehicle information. Transporter performs a 20+ minute walk around directly in front of Service department in full few of multiple cameras, before driving car around to clearly visible truck/trailer, loads up, and departs. Day later, owner calls Dealership asking where his Ferrari is. Local police, owners insurance company, private investigators, all involved, video showing Ferrari driving down the freeway the same day it was picked up proves it never made it out of town. Ferrari is eventually found months later. This occurred middle of 2024

Situation 2:
Owner purchases Ferrari out of area. Owner contacts well established National transport company who in turn brokers private transport** for said Ferrari from point A to point B . Owner had GPS tracker put in car for piece of mind. Transporter arrives with client name & vehicle information and is in turn provided the Ferrari. Tracking the Ferrari it's heading to owner, except it misses several interstates indicating it may not be headed to the owner after all. Owner is in contact with broker and sublet broker with sublet broker saying its coming, the driver is just taking another route, he'll be there, don't worry. After a day of deflection, owner insists on knowing where his Ferrari is and is in turn told the driver had to pick up a second car and provided an address where the driver was, and that the owners Ferrari would be delivered the next morning. Owner, having had enough, reached out to someone local to go check out the address and confirm his car was indeed in a trailer at said location. No surprise, when local person arrived, no Ferrari , no transporter, and resident of said address had not had a car transporter there. By the way, GPS tracker showed car in or around Miami this whole time, that was up until the tracker "went dead"! Owner contacted local authorities, local PI, and hit social media hard.... Car was located and in Miami PD custody within a short time! This occurred within the last 10 days!

In both instances, Central Dispatch was used to broker out the transport request. The drivers both appeared legitimate, having client and vehicle information that matched expectations, there was no reason to assume foul play.

While I will not say NOT to use broker services, I would highly suggest the use of tracking devices, and document document document each step of the way if you do. Ask to see their documents, does the information provided match what you have? Do names, contact information, address align?

If you have the option, I would suggest using a "known" transporters. "Known" meaning you have personally used their services before or that the facility working with your Ferrari has first hand knowledge of the transport company. Even if it costs a little more, saving a few hundred dollars makes no sense at this level of transport. While not full proof, it could minimize the chances of something going wrong.


I have many examples of owner arraigned transports going wrong, from bumpers getting ripped off the car during the loading process, to joy rides, and outright theft as in the example above.


** Private transport = Single/Double car transporter, sometimes referred to as a " hot shot " transporter. Vehicle transported point A to point B with no stops in between.

Steve

 

This is the problem. You contract with X thinking they will ship your car. Unknown to you, X subs the job to Jim-Bob Jackback who got out of prison yesterday.

Shipping is one area where you need to focus on more than just cost.

 

Happening all the time. .


We are requiring photos of drivers and to leave a finger print. Those that refuse self eliminate themselves.

Also warning on hot shot transporters.

They typically do not have enough or any insurance.

Ask for proof of insurance. MAKE SURE IT MATCHES THE TRUCK AND THE TRAILER.

I turn away so many people because of this.

I am no longer assisting people with shipping because of how screwed up this whole situation is.

I know 4 people who have had cars stolen.

 

I was just with someone last week in AZ that said they are hearing about this happening quite a bit, especially in the South Florida area.

I don't get involved with shipping anymore because of this kind of stuff.

 

VinWiki just did a video about this. What a mess.

 

That really sucks. Due to the ever decreasing number of people who are any good with these cars reliable long distance transport gets more important every month it seems. I sure hope the trend reverses.

 

Let’s establish a list of non-broker transport companies that we feel confident in as a reference for future need:

- Horseless Carriage
- Plycar
- Reliable Transport
- Shaughnessy Overland Express

 

For my own shipping (again, I don't get involved with customer shipping anymore), I use Passport Transport quite a bit.

 

Plycar is awesome. The owner drives me crazy... Absolutely bat **** crazy but he's is on top of his ****. He's the one guy n. The whole biz that will drive you crazy because he is calling to make sure we are still on schedule for pick up 9 times before he picks it up. Lol. Never ever had an issue.


Also... Guys I'd skip reliable. They aren't. And they are expensive. Plycar gets my vote and pilot. There are many great companies too those two are just great companies I've worked with a bunch.

 

Unfortunately from what I hear and see... It's going to get worse.

My guy I've been using for 15 years is getting out of the enclosed game.

Insurance sky rocketed and so few are running insurance and if you are legit you can't afford to compete. You can't run a truck half empty. You can't fill a truck being 400 more per car.

He also told me that his bank told him that there are 1 million semi trucks out for repo/behind.

I see the good guys hanging it up... And more and more scum bags entering.

I think it's going to get rough for a while

 

Some industries were better off regulated. Trucking was one of them.

 

I don't mean to make this P and R... But... With this presidents focus on immigration... Things might change. Auto shipping is dominated by immigrants. Of course I have zero idea of their legal status but... I can imagine that many are here... Ummm.... Temporarily

 

Police, Insurance company, Insurance company internal investigation team, and others were and are involved... A lot of attention was put on the two examples I shared ( as well as others )

I would lean more towards a system/process that needs to be updated.

S

 

Yup every theft I personally know of has occured in the LA AREA. but I've heard alot of it in Florida but Florida is full of scams.

Lots of new protocols including me just not helping people with shipping anymore. Lol

 

I remember in 2020 when I was trying to book transport from ATL to LV for the F12, two of my friends had shipping issues. My friend's Cullinan had arrived like two weeks late and the driver broke a control arm and axle trying to unload it, was like a $9,000 repair and took months. At the same time, my friend was waiting on his 458 Spider from MN to LV and the driver also took a meandering route with other pick ups and deliveries that added 7-10 days of panic to what was supposed to be a ~3 week delivery.

That was part of the thought process to go and pick it up in person and drive...

 

Some good thoughts and info in this thread. Thank you!

Makes me even more strongly perfer to drive them now. Having taken a 1,713 mile trip just three weeks ago it offsets a bigger risk with smaller ones (mechanical or electrical problems).

Note to self; stop buying cars in winter.

 

I'll never use a broker. When I started at looking to get my Ferrari delivered, I called a few places. I got nonstop calls and texts for literally years after that. Annoyed the crap out of me, and the business was just stupid. They could have your car for weeks at a time, transfer it to a bunch of different trucks, you'll never get any updates...ended up using a guy that was suggested to me by an F-chatter. Enclosed trailer, definitely more expensive but worth it.

 

these guys have shipped cars all over the world for me, and are super reliable.

https://www.carsworldwide.com/

 

I have used Passport in the past with good results, too. They gave me a link to track the truck without my asking which was nice.

 

I would NEVER use this option

Would ONLY use one of 3-4 national companies.

 

This is a solid car business podcast BTW

 

Plycar is very good. I have also used InterCity Lines several times, great service, but make sure you are dealing with InterCity out of Massachusetts, there is (was?) a fly-by-night broker transport company using the name InterCity and they had terrible reviews.