Photo: AsiaWire / thesun.co.uk
If you ever dreamed of buying a Ferrari for cheap, now’s your chance: come next week, an auction will try and find a new owner for a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, and the starting bid is a mere $250.
This is not a hoax or a typo, so yes, there is a big catch: the Ferrari is not legal. It is currently the property of the police in Dongguan, China and can never be driven in the country, British publication The Sun reports.
According to the tab, the car was seized after being involved in an accident. Police found that it wasn’t registered in the system and didn’t have insurance. Because it was never registered, it can’t be registered by the new owner and, consequently, can never be driven in China.
It’s unsure yet if someone from abroad could buy the car and export it to their country.
Given this, police fitted the car with a temporary fake plate and listed it as “scrap metal,” which explains why it’s selling for what is basically peanuts. After all, this is a car that would otherwise go for upwards of $125,000: for it to sell for so little, it had to have something terribly wrong with it.
On the upside, The Sun says that the Ferrari is in full working order, although considerably dusty. Not that this matters all that much, since you can’t actually take it on the road.
Moreover, whoever buys it, also takes responsibility for paying $1,400 in unpaid parking tickets, which the previous owner accumulated over the years.
“There is no information about this vehicle at the Vehicle Management Office, so it's non-transferable and can't be driven,” a Dongguan Third People's Court spokesperson is quoted as saying. “That's why it's so cheap – we viewed it as scrap metal, and its scrap evaluation came to $347 (2,430 RMB). We then offered a 30 percent discount on that for our auction.”
According to the tab, the car was seized after being involved in an accident. Police found that it wasn’t registered in the system and didn’t have insurance. Because it was never registered, it can’t be registered by the new owner and, consequently, can never be driven in China.
It’s unsure yet if someone from abroad could buy the car and export it to their country.
Given this, police fitted the car with a temporary fake plate and listed it as “scrap metal,” which explains why it’s selling for what is basically peanuts. After all, this is a car that would otherwise go for upwards of $125,000: for it to sell for so little, it had to have something terribly wrong with it.
On the upside, The Sun says that the Ferrari is in full working order, although considerably dusty. Not that this matters all that much, since you can’t actually take it on the road.
Moreover, whoever buys it, also takes responsibility for paying $1,400 in unpaid parking tickets, which the previous owner accumulated over the years.
“There is no information about this vehicle at the Vehicle Management Office, so it's non-transferable and can't be driven,” a Dongguan Third People's Court spokesperson is quoted as saying. “That's why it's so cheap – we viewed it as scrap metal, and its scrap evaluation came to $347 (2,430 RMB). We then offered a 30 percent discount on that for our auction.”
Google News