Billionaire Tesla critic buys `barn-find' 2010 Tesla Roadsters

If you're a fan of “barn finds,” you'll probably remember the tale of the three essentially brand-new 2010 Tesla Roadsters found collecting dust in shipping containers at a Chinese port last year. Turns out, the next chapter of the story features quite the shocking twist.

After over a decade of sitting, the trio of electric beauties has found a buyer — and they're definitely not someone you would expect.

If you had billionaire entrepreneur Dan O'Dowd — the same guy who Tesla threatened to sue after he ran ads during the Super Bowl in an attempt to get the company's self-driving software banned — as the dude that bought them, well, then, congratulations.

YouTube channel What's Inside got the scoop after tracking the EVs down to Medlock & Sons, an independent Tesla service shop in Seattle. The shop's owner, Carl Medlock — who was on the original brain trust that produced the Roadster — revealed that, yeah, O'Dowd was the buyer, and that the vehicles are going to need several hundred thousand dollars worth of repairs to get them back to a driveable state, on top of the estimated US$800,000 it's believed the billionaire paid for the classics.

While he may be against Tesla's “self-driving” software, O'Dowd is apparently a fan of the automaker's hardware, as he allegedly owns several of the original Roadsters, MotorTrend reports.

Whether the cars are fully repaired or not, the unlikely buyer doesn't seem to have plans to drive them, as Medlock revealed in the video that O'Dowd is looking to put the extremely rare EVs on display in a museum. The service-shop owner also suggested they are probably the only three Tesla Roadsters that have never been titled or registered.

O'Dowd made his fortune in technology, focusing on software development, and is best known for creating secure operating systems for the aerospace sector. His campaign against Tesla's self-driving software (FSD) is well reported, with his organization, The Dawn Project, funding political initiatives and even Super Bowl advertising to block the adoption of Tesla's AI tech.

The three brand-new, never-driven 2010 Tesla Roadsters were recently found in a shipping container in a Chinese port after being abandoned years ago by would-be reverse engineers that were denied importation of the vehicles.