When a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, worth tens of millions of dollars by some
estimates, was heavily damaged in a road rally near Blois, France, this month,
it was widely
reported as the world’s most expensive car crash.
But given the dearth of information about the accident, and the silence of all
parties involved, establishing a dollar figure for damages is a tricky
proposition.
The car had been participating in a road rally to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of the GTO when it collided with a privately owned vehicle. The GTO
reportedly sustained severe damage on its right side and front end, but as
Jalopnik noted
on Monday, photos of the damaged car are all but impossible to obtain.
The owner and driver of the Ferrari, Christopher Cox, and his wife Ann, of
Chapel Hill, N.C., reportedly suffered injuries, as did the occupants of the private
vehicle; the extent of the injuries could not immediately be confirmed,
although some reports noted Ms. Cox broke her ankle or leg. (Efforts to contact
the Coxes were unsuccessful.)
In a crash involving such injuries, not to mention repairs that could run well
into six figures, the question of liability is an obvious one. “My guess is the
person who was at fault pays, although I am not completely familiar with the laws
of France,” said McKeel Hagerty, chief executive of Hagerty Insurance.
Within the hobby, driving a multimillion-dollar machine on racecourses and public
roads is not as reckless an idea as it may seem. “These Ferraris are bought for
tours like this,” Mr. Hagerty said.
Based on the private sale in May of another 250 GTO for a reported
transaction price of $35 million, the value of the crashed GTO before the accident
would certainly have been remarkable. But a value estimate would have to
account for some notable blemishes.
In a telephone interview, David Gooding, president of the Gooding & Company
auction house of Santa Monica, Calif., referred to the car’s history on Barchetta.cc,
a Web site dedicated to documenting the provenance of highly desirable
collector cars. Judging from that report, the GTO, which at the time of the crash
was painted in an unusual blue and yellow scheme rather than its original
Ferrari red, was no stranger to the body shop.
This would be its third major crash during its rough-and-tumble half-century of
existence. Barchetta.cc indicated that its original body had been removed in
the mid ’60s and replaced by a custom creation by Drogo, an Italian
coachbuilder. The report noted that the original body was summarily discarded.
The Drogo-bodied version was then involved in a crash in London in 1976, which
resulted in the scrapping of the Drogo body.
The chassis was refitted with a 250 GTO replica body, which can be had for as
little as $750,000. The car retained a Ferrari chassis number, 3445, which
would help it retain much, if not most, of its value.
“Collectors tend to consider the chassis the car, not the body, in vehicles
such as this,” Mr. Hagerty said. “But as time goes on, and the vehicle becomes
based on less and less original content, questions can be asked” regarding its
valuation, he added.
Mr. Gooding echoed Mr. Hagerty’s assessment. “If a car is properly restored,
damages don’t necessarily affect the value, especially in the circumstance of a
rare Ferrari 250 GTO,” he said.
Mr. Gooding declined to estimate the crashed car’s value, but said he expected
the car could be completely repaired. (Motion
Products of Neenah, Wis., reportedly supervised the car’s restoration in
1976.)
“It can certainly be fixed for far less than the total value” of the car, Mr.
Hagerty said, noting that if there was a silver lining to the misfortune, it
would be that the car did not wear its original skin. “If the car had still had
its original body, the owner might have tried to save as much of it as
possible,” he said. “And that would have cost much more, in terms of repairs
and in terms of time.”
As an example, Mr. Hagerty cited a one-of-a-kind 1962 Jaguar E-Type Low Drag
Coupe that was “completely balled up” in a crash. “The owner was determined to
save the original body, and what resulted was a repair that took years and cost
millions of dollars.”
Valuation questions aside, would the ill-starred Ferrari’s latest contretemps
still earn it the infamy of being involved in “the world’s most expensive car
crash”?
“So it would seem,” Mr. Gooding said.
In the superlative-obsessed realm of collector cars, such a dubious distinction
could actually be a benefit, adding a potentially valuable trait to distinguish
it from its peers.
bellsouth.net)