The “barn find” is a well established automotive trope, in which an old abandoned barn far from society is actually a treasure chest, with a forgotten classic car inside. You don’t normally expect people to forget about a car that’s in a garage in a big city, and yet that’s exactly what recently happened in Santa Cruz with a Ferrari 250 GT Lusso.
Real estate agents Dana Bambace and Kimberly Ward were handed the reins on what they describe as a fixer upper of a house in Santa Cruz, California. Although the house was near the beach, it was in an unfortunate state of disrepair.
The former home of David Downs, a scientist who worked with Lockheed Martin, the house was being sold by his inheritors, Ward told the Sacramento Bee. As she and her partner walked through the house to figure out how much work would need to be done, they checked out the three-car garage, and found a big surprise.
Read: Amazing Ferrari Barn Find With 20 Vintage Models Lost In Time To Be Auctioned
“There’s a three-bay garage, and at first I just saw a laundry room and some more storage, but then in the next stall was the car which was my ‘oh my goodness,’ moment,” Ward told Lookout Santa Cruz.
While finding a Ferrari was exciting, the discovery of a rare vehicle was actually a problem. She and her partner now bore the responsibility not just for the abandoned house, but for a car that they suspected might be worth as much as the house, too.
“This whole situation stressed me out — having the responsibility and keys to this house where there’s an amazing car,” said Ward.
So the realtors called Andy Grundy, a classic car broker from Carmel, who immediately identified the car as a “pretty good find!” However, he wanted to know more, so he raced out to the home to see the car to answer his first question, which was “is this real?”
Having now seen the car, Grundy believes that it is one of just 350 Ferrari 250GT Lussos ever made, and one of an even smaller number that still remains. Better still, it was in reasonably good condition, having been repainted just 15 years ago, and having had its engine rebuilt in the early 2000s.
That meant that it didn’t take much for the engine to start purring again. Currently valued at around $1.5 to $1.6 million (not quite as much as the house now that it has been fixed up, but close), Downs’ family is now selling the car, too. As to why, Grundy said that they simply aren’t car people.
“Imagine you inherited a really valuable stamp collection and aren’t interested in stamps. Then it’s a matter of whether you’d want $1.5 million in stamps or $1.5 million cash,” he said. “Which one would you take?”
