In terms of bad luck, this is probably the equivalent of breaking every mirror in a 10-bedroom mansion owned by a known narcissist. One man flew all the way from the United States to France, to test drive his “dream car,” which he planned on buying – and it was destroyed in a fire.
A new viral video is bound to drive a stake through the heart of every Ferrarista out there, if not every car enthusiast: an early 1994 classic perished in a spontaneous fire on a French highway, and there was nothing left to salvage from it. The potential buyer mentioned above, as well as the current owner, were both inside the car when the blaze started.
The way Tarek Salah, the potential buyer, tells the story, he’d found this impeccable, well-maintained Ferrari F355 in France and had already advanced talks with the owner to purchase it. The one thing still to be done was take it out for a test drive, so he arranged for that, flying into France from the U.S. Salah says that it had always “been a dream” of his to drive an F355 down the roads of “beautiful Marseilles,” and it looked as if the dream was about to come true.
Cue the sound of smashed, bad-luck-bringing mirrors. One minute after he told the owner that he smelled fuel, the pair were flagged by another driver: smoke and small flames were coming out of the engine bay, through the back of the car. The owner immediately pulled over, and they were able to get out to safety and recover Salah’s luggage. That’s the only silver lining to the story.
The video, which is also available in full at the bottom of the page, shows that the V8-powered F355 was long engulfed by flames by the time firefighters arrived at the scene. Once the fire was put out, only the nose of the entry-level supercar was still intact on the surface, as everything else was burned to a crisp. Salah was able to get close to the smoldering pile of now-trash, showing the empty cabin where once the coveted carbon bucket seats were located.
According to Salah, “fuel line recall was done on this car & it had a great meticulous owner.” He believes that the fire might have been caused by the fuel injectors, but the cause is yet to be confirmed. “Not that I think it would have helped much,” but there was no fire extinguisher on hand, he continues.
Ferrari produced over 11,200 units of the F355 over a five-year production run, and it was the most-produced Ferrari at the time. These days, a unit retails for anything between $90,000 and $200,000, or in rare cases as much as $400,000, depending on condition. At one point in the video, Salah, who describes himself as a “world traveler, entrepreneur, Porschephile, Ferrarista & Nutella lover,” quickly checks himself and stops short of telling a by-stander how much he wanted to pay for this particular F355.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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