Two Times In the 70s When People Buried Ferraris

stupid stuff that we've said over the years. All right, everyone, we're super excited. Years in the making, we are coming to see you Saturday September one at the Astor Theater in Perth. Sunday September two, I see c in Brisbane, Monday September three at Goldfields Theater in Melbourne. Thursday the six at in Moore Theater in Sydney. And we're gonna wrap it up in fine style that the Bruce Mason Theater in Aukland, New Zealand. It is going to be

a great time. Tickets are on sale now as of April seven, and you can go to s Y s K Live dot com for more info and buy tickets. See you soon. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Pryett, there's Jerry. Guess what Jerry's doing. She's eating your lunch, which is what she always does. So that makes this Stuff you Should Know. Uh, just back from the road. Big grueling

to to city tour. It was kind of grueling because I get really really nervous before d C shows in particular. Yeah, so thank you to Boston, Massachusetts, the Commonwealth making it nice and easy and relaxing the Commonwealth in the district we didn't go to We didn't go to a state. No, we didn't, did we. Yeah, you know those porschemos in um in DC can't even they don't even have representation. Yeah, but they can buy weed. Really, I didn't know that.

I don't know if it's I don't know if they have shops, but I know that DC is one of the places that supposedly voted it in, but he usually takes years after to roll that out. It's a big thing. I read a really really interesting article. I think I was in The New Yorker years back when, right after Washington and Oregon passed and they were the first pass

recreational right. And I can't remember who it profiled or what state the guy was working for, but it was this guy who basically was like, Okay, the voters voted this in, go figure out how to do this, and like, do it right so that we actually get rid of illegal weed and organized crime and all that stuff. But also, um, don't hurt the alcohol lobby. Like this guy had so many interesting air or balls juggling in the air that it was a really great article. Check it out. I

don't remember what it was called. I'm pretty sure it was The New Yorker, No recollection of the year. Go wait, I just left. So we're talking today, not about weed or the New Yorker or anything like that, even Jerry's lunch, Chuck. We're talking about Ferrari's one of the most beautiful cars,

car lines, one of the greatest automotive manufacturers of all time. Yeah, it's funny dudes like you and I. Obviously there's one Ferrari to us, although I have grown to appreciate other Ferraris over the years, like the Ferres Bueller Ferrari and some of those older cool ones. But for guys like us, the Magnum p I Ferrari is the Ferrari to indel Ferraris. Is that like the Yes, I think I don't even remember. I just call it the Magnum. That's all you need

to call it. One of the greatest looking cars in the history of cars. And I'm not even a sports car guy, right, No, I'm not either, but that is probably the greatest car ever made. It's dope, yea. So Magnum could rock that thing, and if you watch him get in and out of it, it's pretty funny. Just that alone is like, Wow, it's a really well made car. Well yeah, and you also like it's Tom Sell like nine tall, Yeah, he kind of is. And are his

shorts that small? But that that Ferrari that I think it's a Yes, it was, um, Yes, his shorts were very small. Um a lot of thigh On that show, it was like a clown car basically when he'd get out of it. Yeah, you know, Higgins would come after and wreck. Man, what a show. But that's not the Ferrari that we're talking about today, and I want to say, so, there's some numbers that are in here. I went and looked up the real numbers. These are way way, way low.

But as far as value of the car, yeah, if you want to get fascinated, everybody, even if you're not into Ferraris, just type in some of the names of the Ferraris that we're going to throw out there today in the years and you will find an entire world out there of breathtaking lee rich people who buy Greek tycoons half a million dollar cars, you know, Yeah, I mean people value different things. Obviously. I've never been a guy that that thought, like a seventy five thousand dollar car.

I've probably just thought why would somebody spend that kind of money. But some people, you know, they love their car, so that's their jam. You know. That's kind of what this episode is for. It's a car episode from two guys who are not car guys, So dig in and prepared to be outraged a moment after a moment. I've got my kind of SUV that my brother thinks is a minivan. It's a crossover. Is that what they're called now? A crossover is like a car and suv. Yours is

a minivan in an suv crossover. Yeah, I drive a Honda Pilot now, everybody, and the Pilot underwent a change from looking like a four runner type of suv a couple of years ago. I think then they kind of shrunk it and squatted it to where it sort of looks like their minivan, put a clown nose on the front. I try to get a minivan and try to get the Honda Odyssey and him, and it was like, no, we're not getting a minivan. Well I saw it just yesterday and I can tell you it's a fine looking

car ship and you're like, totally normal. Drive again. First time I've ever had leather seats under my butt? That is so nice. Here at forty seven years old, and you're just like, fart, that's how you fired in a leather seat classy like well, Plus, it doesn't absorb like those class seats a little stinky. Oh they do, they do, and like it accumulates over time, you know what I mean. That's why if you're ever gonna buy a a used car, everybody,

which frankly, I think you always should smell the seat. No, just do yourself a solid and splurge on the leather because you can wipe those off, right, But I do. Everyone take hard. It's still I'm true to my roots. I have my pickup truck because it's paid for and I still use it for hauling nice garbage. That's that's my side job, is it. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's cool. Good trash. Good to know. Do you have a card? I know, you just flag me down. I'll

just drive around yelling out the window. It's a good idea. You don't need a card. Why waste money on this? Exactly? So we're talking Ferraris today, and we're talking specifically a two year period in the nineteen seventies when not one, but two Ferraris made the news for being buried kind of not Yeah, if you if you want to um terrify, horrify a Ferrari enthusiast talk about burying their their favorite car. Yeah, especially how they did it the second way. All right,

should we start out with the first one? Yes? Alright, Spring and Beverly Hills very lovely, I imagine, yeah, you know, I mean it's always lovely out there in Beverly Hills. Yeah, that's the slogan they put on the T shirts. That's right. There was a socialite named and she was married to well, the story is a little convoluted, but she was the widow of a Texas oil tycoon named Mike West. And these are this is the bare bones beginning. She was married to this guy. He died and she had a

car that she loved, a Ferrari America American nineteen. And her wish was to be buried in this thing. And we'll go ahead and leap to the end and say that did happen, And now we'll fill it in with all the exciting details. Yeah, so this this lady, Sandra West, She actually was born and raised in Beverly Hills. Her parents owned a clothing store, and so she was like middle class um, but she was a looker and she started dating like hunky stars like Elvis. She was hot

to Trot and Sinatra. I think that's actually fair to say. She was a fun loving person, but also a very um lonely person, as we will see. So she she um starts dating around and she ends up dating a guy named Saul West. Yeah, a little weird how this all happened. So Saul West was a tech this oil tycoon, and um, he was actually he was actually well he wasn't away, but he was actually a younger the younger

brother of I Quest. So Sandra West when she meets Saul, she doesn't know that I Quests exist, and she's not super happy with Saul. Apparently he ran around on her and everything. Um, and she was like, wait a minute, you haven't a brother, and he's an older brother and we all know what that means. And he's the true heir to the family fortune. Where is he do you say? And Saul was like, oh, he's just a washed up loser.

He loves drugs and drinking. And the parents they they're sick of them, so they sent him down to Mexico to live with his bodyguard. Yeah, that's where you got to clean up. That's another episode right there. We need to go. I looked into Ike West. There's not a lot about him online. Yeah, I wonder, I mean, we're Is it disparaging to say that she was a gold digger. No, yes it is. She undertook and carried out a project successfully, which is very rich guy. Right, But here's the thing,

Like she could have married Saul West. He was rich. It's not like he didn't have access to the family fortune. He was the one of the I think two brothers who was in the good graces of the family. Yeah, so it's not like he didn't have an allowance, right. She apparently wasn't really happy with Saul West, so she went after I quest and it wasn't like just you know, picking the lowest hanging fruit, like she had to work

for this, and she did. She like took this dude who was down and out in Mexico, living with his body gone down and out in Beverly Hills. No, that was Nicknulty, Yes, because his family kicked him out of the US to go live in Mexico and just basically do whatever you're gonna do. God knows what this guy did in Mexico. Yeah, but she went down there, like you said, um, cleaned him up, I guess, got him off drugs. And he must have thought, you know, this

is this is great. This lady came all the way down here, My brother's girlfriend came all the way down here right to take care of me. Well, she definitely did, and he turned over a new leaf. He said, you know what, I'm I'm gonna come back to the United States. And I want to take the reins of this company that is rightfully mine and this is my wife and or my wife to be. I'm gonna ask her to marry me. And they got married. Yeah, so she cleans

the dude up. They get married, and then first thing is she's like, okay, now we're moving to Beverly Hills, and I want a Ferrari And he bought her Ferrari, bought her the nineteen sixty four Ferrari America three thirty good car. And um, I looked and it's it was the Ferrari three thirty S n what chuck five zero five five? And I was like, what is S? And I can't see it? Yes, so I looked. There are so few of those made Ferraris, like these vintage Ferraris

that they'll actually put the serial number after it. And the serial number is usually a very small number. It's not like one of these ones that they ran out of numbers, so they started using letters. It's like four five numbers usually, right, like my Honda Pilot. When they gave it to me, they were like, here's her Honda pilot serial number right eight zero nine slash a J two. Right. He just checked your wats in the middle of it. Yeah,

I was like, that's the one I want. So they will actually like they they if you look, they'll look, they'll add the serial number after the name of like this specific car is what they're talking about. And they can do that because this particular Ferrari America, the nineteen sixty four that she had, was one of just fifty ever made. So it was a hot car right out of the gate. All right. So they're in Beverly Hills. He has health problems because he had that history of

abusing his body. Um, he had some rapid weight fluctuations, which is never great for your health, and he ended up dying. Uh, in Las Vegas at the Flamingo Hotel. What a way to go under what is labeled here is mysterious circumstances. It's all it's labeled anywhere. I can't find anything out about it. I wonder how many people have died at the Flamingo Hotel under mysterious circumstances over

the years whose family successfully covered it up. So that's a couple of shmows like us years and years later, forty fifty years later, can't find out what happened. Right, So how long were they married? Do you know when what year they got married? So I believe in nineteen Okay, so they were married a short four years. But nevertheless, Sandrow West became heiress to that. Yeah, she got Ike's claim to the to the company. His share went to

her after he died. Right, And that's the thing, like you can you know, you can say what you will about you know, her setting her sights on the true heir him um living pretty fast, but they appeared to very much love each other. He left her his share of the family fortune. She took his last name. Um. She said that she when she filled out a will, she wanted to be buried in Texas next to her husband, not in Beverly Hills, where she was born and raised and spent most of her life. So they were like

an actual real couple. Um. So I have the impression that when he died, like there was something missing for sure in her life, especially considering that she is round known as a fairly um, a lonely person. Yeah, it was like me and Emily. I married her for her dowry as the daughter of a Central Ohio um auto glass magnate. Right, but it's real you know that's right, So well maybe we should take what were you about to say? He's laughing at Auto Glass Magnate. That's what

he does, Seneco glass. Everybody plug in father and lass company. Nice job. You need someone to come out and you had a tree fall on your window. Rick will take care of you. That's nice. That is nice. Uh. Which he's gonna be at our Cleveland show by the way, which is great. He should be. It's like right there, yeah, um, all right, maybe we should take a break because I see the words Ingelbert humper Dink in front of me. We'll come back and reveal the secret right after this?

What secret? Well, she dated Inclbert humperdnk Okay yeah, after like West died, right, she basically made the scene. She became a Hollywood socialite. Yes. And I went to see him in concert when I was a little kid. Yeah. It was one of those like I always say my first concert was cheap trick because that was the first one that I paid to go see. But my parents, as much as they didn't like music, they weirdly took me to see Kenney Rogers uh Inclbert Humper Dink and

I think Bobby Goldsboro. Those are the three shows that I have some faint recollection of being in the b Those are some good early shows. And my mom saw Elvis. I didn't go, but yeah, I think you told me that on that very last tour. I think that was in the grace Land episode. Probably so so us Angelbert Humperdink is one of the people she dated. She she made a name for herself dressing up as the Texas Rodeo Queen, wearing like fringe e stuff with Ryan stones

and a cowboy hat. She went out to Rodeo Drive and we should we should say that she was like a genuine, legitimate died in the wool car enthusiast. Not only did she have that America three thirty, she also had a GTS. Uh no, I'm sorry at three g T and a Dino. Is it a Dino? Do you know? I think it's probably Dino, Okay, and a Dino. She had three Ferraris plus also a Stuts Blackhawk. If it is so, Elvis like that car a lot. Actually it's a It looks like a luxury land yacht married a

muscle car and that's what came out. You should look at Elvis it's a neat, neat car, but apparently it got like eight miles to the gallon. Well that's also why I Alvis loved it, like two and a half tons. I don't want an efficient car, and and that's pretty good.

Uh So, you know she would do crazy things like well, I mean, this isn't super crazy, but she would bop around town in that Ferrari and like go to the uh Chasen's and Beverly Hills in order of Burger to go and speed out of there in a Ferrari in her rodeo outfit. So she was sort of well known in town. Is a bit of an eccentric And by that I think we mean she like pills a lot. Well, sure, it's the seventies, so uh yeah, so she lived fast, but she had fun. I guess it's the way to

put it right. The fast died young. She did die young. So in her America, she got into a car wreck and sustained some injuries and she seemed to be on the men she was getting better, but she from what I understand, she was given a nurse and a doctor to oversee her the drugs that she was taking as a result of the car wreck while she was mending um.

And then one night I guess she had taken too much or else she got her hands on some mother drugs and she overdosed, apparently on codeine and barbiturous from what I saw, very sad. However, this is where the story gets a little strange. That that was in seventy seven when she passed, and in nineteen two, five years previous, she actually thought ahead of time and said, I want to be buried next to my husband. See in my

late night gown by Porter Loring. It was I guess, just the the go to mortuary mortician, hot mortician in San Antonio. Uh, and I want to be buried in my ferrari with and this is a quote with a seat slanted comfortably. Yeah. She didn't want to be sitting straight up right for eternity, of course not. So here's the thing for her will to be carried out. It fell to her brother in law slash ex boyfriend, Saul West. Saul was not very amused by the prospect of having

to do this. I'm sure he was like, are you kidding me? So? Um? After all this, Yeah, because not only is it bearing a ferrari, the other ferrars got auctioned off for ridiculous amounts of money. Some of her jewelry after her death was auctioned off for things when I think one of them is like three fifty grand in nineteen seventy seven dollars for one of her rings. Another one's like a hundred and fifty grand for another ring, and her ferraris were auctioned off. So her state was

being liquidated. The idea of burying one of these cars with her, who I would guess he probably didn't like very much. Um, that was bad enough, but on top of it, this funeral was going to cost about fifteen thousand dollars in nineteen seventy seven dollars. So he went to a judge and said, this lady was wacko. There's no way I should have to do this, judge now. And the judge is like, all right, wait, we're gonna

put a hold on all this. Let's put Ms His west on Ice in a mausoleum literally, and uh, we're going to start all this out. So they did. Yeah, So her position, Dr Raymond Weston Um had to testify and says, well, she was a bizarre woman for sure. Um and he described her as a psychotic with a tendency towards paranoia and hallucination. But the judge was like, you know, it really doesn't matter. If these were her wishes,

then it's legally we have to carry them out. So the final ruling came down that yes, we are going to bury this woman in her ferrari, right, and by we, I mean you saw the judge was not so sol

did it. He hired Porter loring as um as Sandra had had stipulated, and um they shipped the Ferrari out from Beverly Hills, UH to be outfitted with Sandra, who was wearing her lace nighty, put into the car and then put into a casket, an enormous giant casket, and then um taken by train out to the graveyard where a crane was waiting to the ferrari was in a casket. Yeah, they put the whole thing in a casket. Well I guess that makes sense, Sure it does. It's a big

old casket, was it? The didn't Elon must send up? Oh no, of course that was a tesla right. It was like, wait a minute, wasn't there a ferrari in space? No, it's a test Yeah, that would have not make it any sense whatsoever. And it makes you wonder, like, who really is Starman? Which of his enemies was unlucky enough to be shot alive into space to die out there

while the whole world was watching, you know? And that's because he's got a touch of super villain to him, you think, Yeah, we're just all very fortunate that he's not super villain because would be in big trouble if he want keeps it all in check. Sure, so the story very sadly sort of ended, although she got her wish, she didn't she didn't have like a lot of friends, like apparently the people that attended her funeral were her

attorneys and nurses and doctors and stuff like that. Uh. So it was sort of a sad ending to this lady's wacky life to be buried in a nineteen ft long, ten ft wide, nine ft deep grave in her Ferrari right, which they filled with cement around so nobody could try to get or that nightgown. But she got her wish, her wish came true. Yeah, so happy ending, Sure, sad ending happy uh And apparently now there it is still visited by people. Where is it san Antonio. People will

go by and see where this Ferrari is buried. Yes, you to San Antonio? Did you go by there? I didn't, And I knew about this, but I didn't realize she was in San Antonio. We would have totally gone. It sounds like something that you guys will put on your list. Well, it's on the list now. I'll tell you that. Should we take a break? No, should we barrel into the second one? Then take a break? Yeah? All right, we stay in California because that's where this kind of crazy

stuff happens. Well, we have to go back to California because we were just in San Antonio. Good point. Watching the three hundred spectators watched Sandra West get buried. It was really weird, that's right. So we go to south central Los Angeles, the West Athens part, and I didn't know where West Athens was until I looked it up nine Street roughly. Uh, it's sort of by the one ten right, Yeah, it's kind of like east of Hawthorne. Um, I have no idea what you're talking about. I just

made up that one tin thing. I looked it up to though. I was like, because I had seen it referred to the South Central, but then everything else said west Athens and I'm like, what is that? So I looked and then we're Beverly Hills in Hollywood are and that's it, right, pretty pretty much in Venice the water, but it is it's like in the south part of South Central, the southwest part of South Central. I think

that seems about right near. Yes, okay, alright, so we're oriented, and uh, there's a staff reporter from the l A Times named Priscilla Paynton who's going to figure in because she kind of covered the story and it is in depth, and well, this story is a little weird. We're going to tell you the story, but the story is not quite accurate, but we're gonna We're gonna go and tell it as it was originally written, which is what people

thought it was for decades and decades. That's right. So there were some kids digging around in the dirt in their neighborhood, which is what kids are or to do. This probably a little horseplay. I'm sure one kid was probably self conscious. There was a lot of kids stuff going on, lots of kids stuff, and they were digging around and they felt something not too deep that felt hard and said this. You know, I guess they probably brushed the dirt away and said, this looks like like

maybe the roof of a car. That's a weird thing to find at nineteen Street, but it's kind of a weird thing to find anywhere buried underground, you know. Yeah, So they got a cop involved pretty quickly, which was, you know, a great thing for these kids to do. I wouldn't have done that. I would have gotten shovel and seeing what was going on. Oh yeah, oh sure.

So okay, well these kids were a little a little more do gooder than you, apparently, right, So they flagged down a cop and then the next thing you know, there's two detectives on the scene, Detective Joe Sabbaths and Detective Dennis Carroll, who would become forever known around as precinct as Lenny Carroll because Priscilla Painter Painting called him that accidentally. She put down that was his name in the story. Oh if only Joe had become Carl, yeah,

Carl and Lenney, that would have been so wonderful. So Dennis Carroll and Joe Sabbath were working this thing when Priscilla Painting comes out and she's watching this, this whole thing goes going down and this is what she's seeing. She sees all of a sudden, now there's a there's an earth mover. There's a whole bunch of sheriff's deputies with shovels, also earth movers, but different kinds, you know. And they're digging around this car and they're they're getting

more and more dirt off of it. And um, Sabbath and Carol see that there's a car under there, but it's covered in like rugs and plastic. And somebody tried to kind of intomb the car, mummify it, I guess, is how one of the guys from gelop Nick put it. And what it was was a Dino to six gts and this also had a serial number, oh seven eight six too, and uh, they kind of duck through the car. They eventually got it out. They dug through the trunk. There was no one buried in it. No, no drugs.

Are big suitcases of cash or something you might expect to find in a buried ferrari. Yeah, you like, who would just bury a ferrari? This became an actual, like huge question. Well, they ran the plates and found pretty quickly that it had been stolen, that it was listed as stolen, and so they started digging into it, right literally they did. That was that's a good catch. So um they found that back in vour this eight in four the car had been hearted stolen by the original owner,

a man named Rosando Cruise. And Rosando Cruise and his wife had gone to dinner at the Brown Derby on Wilshire, um for their anniversary. Yeah. Well we should point out though, as originally reported, they said that it was in surprisingly good condition. Okay, this is Priscilla Paynton saying that in the Los Angeles time. Kind of an important uh key little clue here, right Okay, So, um, at the brown Derby Rosando Cruise and his wife for celebrating their um,

their anniversary. And he had just bought her recently a car, I think for her birthday or something like that. Um, and he was doing pretty well. Apparently he was a plumber by trade. I would guess he owned his own company. Um. But he had bought his wife a Ferrari that at the time had cost about twenty two thousand dollars is how much I had sent him back, which is well over seventy thousand dollars in two thousand seventeen. Yeah, okay.

So he when they got there, he had noticed that the valet was looking a little too anxious to get the keys from him, and he's like, I'm not letting these guys get Ferrest Bueller my car. His wife was like, what does that mean. He's like, just give it a decade or so and you'll see. So he decided to just go parking himself on on Wilshire Boulevard much safer. Yeah, good idea. And so when he came back, the car was gone. That's right, the car was gone. Um. There

were no leads as to who took it. Uh, as far as the detectives were concerned, and Farmer's Insurance group said, you know what, we're gonna pay. We're gonna pay this thing off at a loss of that uh dollar dollar dollar dollars to the legal owner, um, which at this point was the was the Bank of America, very very big point as well. Okay, so so basically the what you just said, the shot of it is they said, okay,

we looked into it. The car was stolen. It's gone. Uh, Farmer's Insurance, you need to pay the owner of the car, which is the bank, and it's all just done. This is four years prior, right, So when the car turns up, um, like you said Priscilla Paynton, Well you want to take a break. Nice cliffhanger. Okay. I took nice cliffhanger as a yes. You meant yes, right, yes, okay, good, Well we're back so um like you said, Priscilla Payton had said,

the car seemed in surprisingly good condition. She patented a good picture, she did, but un incorrect picture, that's right. So basically she set off this huge frenzy among Ferrari enthusiasts. A Dino Dino had been discovered underground, had been written off by an insurance company, and it was in surprisingly good condition. That meant that they could probably get a pretty good deal on it. And everybody wanted it. And

everybody started lighting up the switchboard at Farmers Insurance. Yeah, and I get the idea that not only could they get this Ferrari and and do whatever little restoration it needed, but there's also just the story behind it made it kind of a cool thing. Yeah, this was the car buried in south central Los Angeles. Yeah, and I look at it now. This made national news it also is Sandra wests burial made national news and that had just been several months before. Um, so the you know, the

two were compared. It was buried Ferrari fever in the US. And how close that was very close? Interesting, I mean different years. But she was buried in May, and this happened I think in um like the following year or like less than a year later. Okay, all right, So the car actually was not in good shape at all, to say the least, they were, And boy, I love this. This is why it's a Ferrari. Twenty one layers of paint, fourteen layers of primary, seven layers of paint. Um they were.

It was in bad shape. The paint was freckled. It was had white spots all over it. Rust. Of course, you can't bury a Ferrari and cover it with rugs and expect it to you know, that'll take care of it. So rust it eaten through it through the body. Um. The leather interior was in bad shape. What did the thieves do with some towels? So they were smart enough to stuff towels into the intake to keep dirt and worms and stuff from getting into the engine. But they

neglected to do that in the exhaust pipe. They had put some towels in between the window cracks, I think dangle the towels over the outside, but then didn't roll the windows all the way up. So they weren't doing a very good job. But in their defense, they had to bury Ferrari in the middle of Los Angeles. How did this How did this not get noticed? I don't know. But the cops when they canvass the area, the neighbors

were like, we have no idea. The residents of the house were renters and they'd only lived there for three months. They had no idea. So they the cops just basically were like, well, it's a stolen car that was already written off. It's a it's a done case. We're not gonna break our backs trying to find out what happened here. It's pretty obvious what happened here, So they sent it

off to Farmers. That's right in very bad shape. And even pulling this thing out of the dirt, obviously the engine compartment got crushed, uh, all scratched up and gouge. The windshield was smashed, which Rick Sen a Bogan it's in cod could have picked you right up, looks you're right up in an afternoon. Actually probably not, because imagined it for one shield like that is pretty hard to come by. Um sorry, Rick, but uh, the idea that

someone could restore this thing was not true seemingly. Yeah, and well, like Farmers was getting such um so many calls and we're having to deal with the public on such like a large scale that they decided to just put it on display. So anybody who called in inquiring about it, they said, well, here's the address. You can actually go bid on it if you want it, and um, people did, but they didn't really make too many serious bids. They mostly just stripped the car as best they could.

Somebody took the dipstick. Even this Gelopnick article said, I wonder if that was just let me get a piece of this saying, or if it was like I can't find a dipstick for mine, maybe both you know, or eBay doesn't exist yet, but it will someday. I'm gonna sell this thing for a million bucks. Yeah. So this was a couple of weeks on display in Pasadena. Where As this article says, everything that was not bolted down was kind of nicked from it. I can't believe they

just didn't have security or something. Yeah, I don't. I guess they weren't doing a very good time. I mean it was a junk Ferrari so but still, I mean they were taking bids on it. They didn't. It wasn't like, you know, come come take what you want and say, Oh, it's not like a starving artist sale at a hotel conference room or something, you know. Alright, So the long and short of it is, in the end, they did take some bids after it had been scrapped and gouged

by onlookers. Right, So here's here's where the legend kind of picks up again. Right, You've got this car that has like a legendary status already, but it's also totally tragic if you are a Ferrari enthusiast. This is a sad, sad story. Um. But it's purchased by somebody, some unknown person actually, like a mechanic I think who owned his own garage in Burbank, tried to start it and like

for for something. For some time, there were some dispatches coming out of this restoration project because the public apparently knew that this guy had actually gotten it to start, but then the engine just collapsed and it didn't look very good. Right, Yeah, what do you pay? But like between five and nine grand. Yeah, it's pretty good deal, but it was in pretty bad shape. Right. So after that, the Ferrari just kind of disappears for a little while.

And then somehow the Ferrari enthusiasts public could confirm that the thing had been resurrected, it had been licensed, it had been restored to its former beauty. They had a new plate called dug Up, right, But then it just is gone. It's not listed on any of the Ferrari registries or the Dino registries or anything like that. It's just they know it's out there, but they don't know where it is. It just becomes like this phantom, which

makes it even cooler. And that's where the story ended. Originally, there were there were a couple of Gelopnick articles and it's a good website, It really is a great website. And there was one Gelopnic writer in particular who was like, that was a pretty good article, but I want to know more about. His name was Mike Spinelli, and he did a follow up he dig he dug in even further to this legend. He wanted to find that Ferrari,

and he actually ultimately was successful. But what he turned up, Chuck, was an even bigger twist to this story than digging up a Ferrari in the middle of south central Los Angeles. That's right. He ultimately found Dennis Carroll, that one of the original lead detectives Lenny and Carl he was, and he learned the true story, which was kids did not find this thing playing in the dirt. That didn't happen

at all. It was actually discovered because of a tip from a c I right, and if you've seen the wire, you know what that stands for. It's a confidential informant. He was a heroin addict and I want to say he assume was guy for some reason. Yeah, it could go either way. Yeah, I just hear a confidential informant heroin addicted. I think, dude, not fair, ladies, I'm sorry, right, Yeah, she'll leave us out of that circle. Uh. So he and his partner had made Uh Lenny had had made

up that story about the kids finding it. I guess because it was a police matter. It was a confidential informant, so they had to cook up this fake story. They I don't know if they had to, but they they wanted to sniff painting off the case. Um so so they Yeah, they just protected their source and said it was kids playing, and that became how this car was

found for decades, that was the story. Any anyone you heard that story from, unless you were probably the wife of Joe Sabas or the wife of Dennis Carroll, they would say they would start with some kids were playing in a yard and found this car. Totally made up, right, So that's twist number one that they found. Twist number two is actually the fact that this was all a set up job to begin with by the own Did we say he was a plumber, Yeah, the plumber. Uh basically,

I mean what could he not afford it? So he decided to have it professionally stolen to get an insurance claim. That's my impression, that's what he did. We don't know the reason behind it, I think for my interpretation, and it's up for interpretation because he was never charged with this crime. Oh really Yeah, it was written off as a loss right which we all pay for it. Let's be honest, right, Um, the the this is my this

is the Josh Clark interpretation of this crime. Rosando Cruz very much loved his life his wife, so he bought her a Ferrari that he couldn't afford. But did I say he very much loved his wife, he didn't want to tell her that he needed the ferrari back. He arranged for it to be stolen and maybe make some money on the side as well, and then he would pretend to be mad that the ferrari was stolen, and all of his problems would be solved, right, which is why he cooked up the story about being wary of

the valet parkers. So this is why I need to park it on Wilshire and that's where it was arranged, pre arranged to be taken. And he he kind of thought like, oh, you're gonna like strip it for parks and then drive it into a ravine, Yes, which makes sense in a weird way. Right, then you could fence the parts so you get some extra money, and then he would pay them out of the insurance claim. That's not how it went down. He didn't say bury this thing in south central l A right without stripping it

of basically any parts. I think they took the the Ferrari logo off of the back of the car. But everything else was points to the idea that the thieves were gonna did Mike D's first necklace, but they they every all of the way that the car was buried points to the idea that the thieves were gonna come back for it some day. There was an attempt to preserve it. Let me throw some rugs on this, and not only are we getting paid for steal on the Ferrari, but we're going to dig it up and drive it

out of the whole one. Yeah yeah, wow, because it's got all wheel drive probably that's pretty amazing. So um, from what I understand, Rosander Cruiz was never charged with this crime, even though the cops knew. Good for him, I guess, um. But and that was just my interpretation. I don't mean to cast any shade on him, but just from my research. If that's not the case, my apologies, But that that is what it looks like to me. Here's the thing. He didn't get the check. The Bank

of America got this well. Yeah, so if that was the point, he didn't think it through very well well, but he was out from under those payments at least, right. That's why I think he did it. He didn't have to pay that like seven hundred dollars a month. I can't imagine, though, I mean, like I think about it. Just think about buying an eighty thousand dollar car. It's a lot of dough dough, it's a lot chuck. But now that car would be worth about three hundred thousand dollars.

Well it's still around though, right, yes it is. Sorry, there's still more to the story. Yeah, guy named Brad Howard actually owns this car that was buried and trashed underground, which is a pretty amazing into this story is that this thing is actually restored to its former glory and

still owned by a guy. Yeah, and the guy Mike Spinelli makes this point that, um, when the Ferrari was found, it was in pretty bad shape, despite what Priscilla Paynton said in the article, But it could have been in way, way, way worse shape. And the reason why it wasn't in in worse shape than it was was because those years seventy between ninety six seven and most of night there was a huge drought in southern California, the same drought

that actually created skateboarding. Because nobody could fill up their pools. So skaters started skating the Z Town Dogtown z boys. There you go. They they started skape warding because of this drought. That same drought preserved this car a little bit underground, more than it would have been had it rained a lot. Right, And that's the end of that chapter, Paul Harvey style. So you got anything else? No? I mean, I wonder if this has happened again, maybe we'll do

a whole suite on buried cars. I would love to know that. Yeah, if somebody, if you know that there's especially if somebody buried another Ferrari, let us know. We'll add it and make it a hat trick. Please. Uh. In the meantime, you can go look up buried Ferrari's all over the internet and on gelot Nick in particular, who did a great job of digging this story up. That was unintentional. Uh. And since I said it was unintentional,

it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this another teacher rights and we always like to feature teachers in their classes. Hey guys, longtime listener, first time writer. Just listen to How the Sun Works episode again and wanted to thank you for selecting it as a stuff you should know. Select did you do that? I did? Oh? Why did you do that to it? I don't know. I just thought it should be out there again because it's a legendarily one of our most troublesome shows. She

said it brought back, brought back awesome memories. Though. How the Sun Works was my very first episode that I listened to, and it's the one that made me decide to continue listening. How about to give you a second chance? And she's like, are these guys for real? I think it was your disclaimer that you were not professionals, wanted corrections, and that you're continuing remarks for that we're badly screwing this up, and it made me want to keep listening.

For the record, I thought you were charming, relatable and delightfully human and wanted to hear more every time I listened to the show. And here you mentioned the awful sun podcast, and where I right in and tell you that that's the one that actually started my eight year and counting love affair. How about that? That's something Like many others who have been listening, your show has become very special to me, not only because it helped me

through many long card trips and intensive home projects. But because I've listened, there's some very formative years in my life. I started listening as a teenager, and I feel like y'll are friends who have been with me through high school, college, in my early married years. And now I am a teacher. I teach seventh and eighth grade math, science, language, arts, and social studies, and I feel like I'm constantly telling my students facts and tidbits that I learned that week

from your show. And now I am middle aged and no, I'm retired, now I'm dead. Uh, seriously, it never fails. Guys, Thanks again for all you do. Looking forward to many more years to come. That's from Hannah Barton and uh Ms Barton or Mrs. I don't know which. It's probably Miss Barton's class, right, yeah, Miss Barton and your class. Hello, thank you for listening. Oh boy, thank you for giving

us a a second chance after that being your first episode. Yeah, that was a great email, Miss Barton, thank you very much for writing it. Good luck to you and your class. It's gonna be a great year next year. That's right. Uh, if you want to tell us about your class. We love hearing from teachers. Like Chuck said, you can tweet to us at That's Why sk Podcast. I'm at josh um Clark, Chuck's at Well Chuck's at Movie Crush. On

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