Race Car Driver Sues For Title Of Stolen Rare Ferrari
 

An Ohio judge could decide as early as Thursday whether a Belgian race car driver and collector has any rights to one of the world's rarest of race cars or whether it belongs to a Cincinnati woman whose father first bought it in the 1950s.

Right now, collector Jacques Swaters has possession of the 1954 Ferrari 375 Plus — which could be worth as much as $15 million. But Karl Kleve's family has the title and spare parts to it in Cincinnati.

Swaters, 84, says he restored it from a burned-out shell. It's now a shiny red one-seat convertible with lots of chrome.

"Oh, I've done a terrific job on the car," he said. "We've been working for many, many years to restore the car.

The company made only six of them, and just four of them are thought to still exist. In its time, the Ferrari 375 Plus was the fastest car on the track.

Kleve's daughter, Kristi Kleve Lawson, says the car was stored outdoors in a Cincinnati lot with a hundred other old cars. She says her dad knew the car was valuable when he bought it in 1958 for $25,000.

"He collected Duesenbergs; he collected Rolls-Royces. I know he had at least a dozen," she says.

In 1988, Kleve discovered the Ferrari was stolen. Two Cincinnati men were later convicted of the crime, but the car had disappeared. Lawson says her dad searched for it for years, eventually tracking it down in Belgium.

This is where the case gets a little more complicated. Lawson says Interpol got involved and convinced Belgium authorities that the car was stolen. She says it was eventually released to Swaters.

But Swaters tells a different story: He says in 1990 a trader sold it to him for $100,000.

"I was very interested because it was a very famous car," he says, "and then a little later I learned the car had been stolen, so I charged a lawyer to negotiate with the owner to make a settlement."

Swaters says he paid Kleve more than $600,000 for the car, and that Kleve cashed the check. Kleve's daughter says her father never received any money, and if Swaters has a canceled check, her dad's signature must have been forged. She says finding the car had become an obsession for him.

"This was his biggest project," she says. "By the time he passed away, he said this was the greatest auto theft that had ever occurred."

Lawson's attorney Daniel Randolph says Swaters' lawsuit, which accuses Lawson of failing to transfer the title to him, should be dismissed.

"We think it's not only unfair; we think it's a case of a person who's alleged to have millions and millions of dollars taking an anvil and trying to go after a Hamilton County resident," he says. "Kristi works two jobs to help her family continue to function as a family."

Cincinnati judge Norbert Nadel will decide whether the statute of limitations has run out in the case and if this very famous and valuable car must be returned to Ohio.

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http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2010/08/11/shell.jpg

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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=129138503

something doesn't add up.

there should be a record of an international bank transfer that large somewhere. if they can find any record of the $600k payment, give the Belgian the title.

Even if they don't find that, what was the statute of limitations and when did/does it apply? How long have they known where the car was?

This onfe's been going round-about for years!

For Sale: 1954 Ferrari 375 Plus, need restoration. Stolen No title $600k. I think that this will be the mother of all "dont put a dime into it until your name is on the title car stories"

Interesting story. Here's a little more info including the parts that the family in Ohio has. Seems to me that they have a legal title and therefore own the car. Mr. Swatters may be out of luck. His fault for restoring a car he didn't have the title to.

http://thebellwetherdaily.blogspot.c...hio-title.html

always good stuff. reminds me of the once "missing shelby daytona CSX2287", albeit a tale with slightly more sordid details, now sitting in the simeone museum in PA.

(apologies for the wikipedia copy/paste below...i couldnt find a comprehensive link. but def worth researching for the full story, if youre into that kind of thing!)

"Five Shelby Daytona cars were constructed in Italy, one car, known to collectors as CSX2287, was manufactured in the United States. Ownership of the cars was recorded for five cars, however records for the sixth car were lost in the mid-1970s. For a long time car historians and collectors feared the sixth car was lost.

In 2001 the car was re-discovered in a rental storage unit in California.[1] The owner Donna O'Hara had committed suicide by burning herself alive.[2] The car had remained undiscovered for almost 30 years. Due to its estimated worth of over $4,000,000 USD the car was part of an extensive legal battle between her mother who sold the car to a collector in Pennsylvania, and a friend of Ms. O'Hara who was the recipient in her will of the contents of the storage unit. An earlier owner of the car appears to have been music producer Phil Spector who had been known to drive it on the streets of Los Angeles. Built for high-speed sprints, the cab became uncomfortably warm as the car engine heated up, among other problems. "It wasn't a street car; it was a race car", Shelby said. Still, Spector drove it on the streets, and legend is that Spector racked up so many speeding tickets, his lawyer advised him to get rid of the car before he lost his license.

CSX2287 has been mechanically reconditioned and is on display at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia. Jay Leno has been to the museum and video of him driving the car appears on his web site.

Here's the Cobra:
http://tonyp.smugmug.com/Other-Car-E...24_hUzCu-M.jpg

And yes, the Simeone Museum is absolutely worth the visit!

Here's a link to the pics when my son and I visited this past winter.

http://tonyp.smugmug.com/Other-Car-E...56460579_HPE8A