Right place, right time
I’M PROBABLY BEST described as an accidental Ferrari owner right now.
I had been admiring and talking about buying a 612 Scaglietti for a year, tracking prices, calling and emailing friends and spending countless hours scanning the ads.
Long before Hurricane Irma was a thought, I took a trip to central Florida to complete the purchase of another, entirely different car that I had bought on eBay. The car was less than described (surprising no-one, including myself ) but the deal included an interesting twist: the sellers had no paperwork, a detail they did not disclose until I actually arrived on the scene. After the initial shock, I politely told them I was still interested should they find a legal way to exchange title, and made my way south for an evening dinner meeting with a collector-car dealer friend.
Still primed to buy a car after the earlier disappointment, we soon reached agreement on the lovely, 20,000-mile Tour de France Blue 612 Scaglietti that had been in his showroom for seven months. I had seen, and coveted, the car on previous trips to Florida, but did not imagine I would own this particular example, its asking price being a bit too dear for my budget. However, he was ready to sell and, as it turns out, I was in the right place to buy.
The possibly true story about the actual birthing of the 612 is a great one. Ferrari dealers, long-suffering in their ability to sell cars that would fit newly wealthy footballers, rugby players or, here in North America, NFL football or NHL hockey players, requested a Ferrari for guys with wide shoulders, long legs and trunks, or possibly even those with less than a rockstar waistline. The 612 Scaglietti is a big car that accommodates big guys, and, well, let’s just say I’m the guy you don’t want in the middle seat next to you on a flight.
About that hurricane. Since the car I bought was in Florida, between paying for it and arranging for shipment to my home 1000 miles away, Irma became a thing, at one time predicted to make a landfall close to its temporary Fort Lauderdale home. The 612 rode out the storm unscathed, tucked away in a secure building, and is now safely in my garage. Driving impressions at this point are nil, but that’s about to change.