I can tell you about it. If you don’t want to read this incredibly long post, skip to the last sentence. I met the man in 2012 that owned all those GTs and spent a day with him. His name is Henry, and he and those GTs lived in Chattanooga, TN. He bought all 16 GTs (2 in each color) strictly as an investment to resell. Henry built that warehouse specifically for the purpose of storing them. He had the building’s seams caulked and sealed, and the skylights were UV-ray protected. He installed a massive HEPA-filtration system to keep the dust out of the building. Surprisingly, I didn’t have to wear an Intel white bunny suit to enter the room. On top of all that, the building was climate controlled and had TWO backup generators—“just in case it lost power.” Once a month, he would put fresh gasoline in the cars, start them, and move them around the shop. The next month he would siphon the old fuel out and put fresh fuel back in, and start the process all over again. Once a year, he would take them down to the local Ford dealership and have all the fluids replaced. Obsess much?
In March of 2012, I was watching an auction on eBay for a white/blue stripe, three-option car. I noticed the same pictures, shown in the article in question, posted on eBay. The car was being sold ‘no reserve’, and it sold for $163,000. I thought, “Holy cow.” This is either a scam or someone got an incredible deal. At that time most of the GTs on eBay were selling in the $185,000 range. I decided to keep an eye out for any future auctions from this seller. I flew to Las Vegas in May of 2012 to view and test drive a 2006 black, four-option car. On the bottom floor of the Palazzo Hotel, someone had opened a Lamborghini dealership but it had fallen victim to the financial crisis. A couple of young entrepreneurs had reopened the location as an exotic car dealership, and were selling exotic and rare muscle cars on consignment. The black GT I flew out to see had twin-turbos with the factory supercharger, x-pipe, slicks, and race fuel. We took the car down the elevator then turned it loose on the streets of Vegas. Man, you want to talk about loud, when the sound of that open exhaust reverberated off all those hotels, people were shocked and frightened by the sound of that GT coming down the strip. I’ll never forget the startled looks on their faces. Unfortunately, the paint was in rough shape so I decided to pass on the car.
Disappointed, I went back to my room and checked eBay again. I noticed two more GTs were for sale from the same seller from the March auction. Both auctions had the same pictures from the article. First up, a red, 4-option 155-mile GT. The second GT was a blue, 4-option with 2,100 miles. My plan was to bid on the red GT because that auction ended first and if I didn’t win that one I would then bid on the midnight blue GT. The bidding again was ‘no reserve’ and started at $150,000. I put my max bid in at $165,000 and flew back to Texas. The auction ran for a week and I was the lead bidder for most of the time at $163,000. It was me and one other bidder. I decided to call the owner and make sure I wasn’t being scammed. A man, who was Henry’s friend and handled the auctions for him, called me back and said everything was legitimate and gave me the scoop on the cars. I told him if I won I would need to fly out and see the car. I wasn’t going to wire that kind of money and hoped it all went well. He agreed then oddly asked me what my max bid was set at. I reluctantly told him and explained that I couldn’t afford any more than $169,000. Interestingly, the auction stated any bidders bidding on the car with zero purchases would be deleted. Suddenly, a mystery bidder with zero purchases started bidding against me. I raised my max bid to $169,000. The mystery bidder took the price to $170,000. I was not going to keep bidding against myself. The $170,000 price stayed there until the last day of the auction. Then the other legitimate bidder got back into the picture and bid to $171,000. The mystery bidder, who I believed was the owner’s friend, took the bid to $172,000. I figured the actual second bidder would bid to $175,000 and stop. I assumed the faux-mystery bidder would then bid the car to $176,000. I waited until the last 8 seconds of the auction and put a bid in for $176,100. I hit enter and the screen went white and said the auction had ended. I thought, “Crap…what just happed...did I win…WTF?” As I was logging back onto eBay to see what happened, my phone rang and it had a Tennessee area code. Excited, I answered and it was Henry’s friend (his name escapes me). He said, “Chris, did you just buy that red GT?” I said, “I guess I did or you wouldn’t be calling me.” He said, “I thought you were going to stop at $169,000?” I said, “I didn’t want to tell you my plan in case you started bidding against me.”
The next day I was on a Southwest flight to Nashville, where I rented a car and drove to Chattanooga. I arrived at the warehouse earlier than I had planned. It was unlocked, so I cautiously walked in and looked around. Henry arrived with his eBay friend. Henry wore shorts, a polo shirt and flip flops. Henry was a very interesting man and told me how he made his fortune. You would never know he was worth almost a billion dollars; he was a nice gentleman and treated me like he had known me for years. He told me he had bought all the GTs as an investment, and flew to the cities where the dealerships were located and drove the cars back home himself. On long trips he would Fedex his dirty clothes home and buy new clothes daily. At the time of the meeting, he had roughly a half-dozen GTs left for sale. I asked him if the white GT located next to my soon-to-be new red GT was the one from the March auction. He confirmed it was and said the bidder never paid for the car and he would sell it to me for the same $163,000 winning bid. Also, he said he would sell me the rest of his collection (which included a Heritage Edition) for a very fair price. I explained to him that I was “not” almost a billionaire like him nor anywhere close, and that I was all-in just to buy the one GT. I told him after hearing his stories I felt like I had been working for minimum wage. He said, “We are both entrepreneurs doing the same things in different ways, you’ll get there.” Unfortunately, I am still nowhere near his then net worth. My final question to him was, “Why are you selling all your GTs?” He stated he had just bought a television network and the GTs were consuming way too much of his time. He said he never made a dime on the investment, but me and all the other people that had bought his GTs would profit as he had hoped.
We went over to the local Ford dealership, where he traded in the red GT to the dealer and then I bought it back at the eBay winning price. A few days later I joined the Ford GT Forum and my practically brand new 7 year old GT arrived at my house.
As DBK said, “long gone”. All those GTs were all sold in 2012.
