abandoned race cars. Life is not fair.

This all reminds me of another reason why I never got into real racing. Participants are at the whime of rule-makers, where with just a slight change of the rulebook and your pride and joy instantly becomes a space-sucking has-been that won't sell.

GameboyRMH wrote: By me, I've seen a '70s-looking Ford Cortina rally car rotting in a plantation yard, and I know there's a secret "private junkyard" of '50s cars behind another plantation that are mostly rotting away. Ex-shop-promo cars usually get parted out or turned into something else. They don't get sold as-is because shops don't want to put cars so closely tied to their image into some random dude's hands. A few do get abandoned like this - I remember Speedhunters had an article on them - but that's the exception rather than the rule.

We have a situation right now where one of our old development cars has been passed around a few times. It's been neglected and degraded, and recently dropped a valve. Because our name is attached to the car, this is our problem even though we sold it years ago.

That was never a halo car like the Track Dog or the Targa Miata. The latter has evolved with time, shifting roles and becoming more and more radical. It's different, though, as it belongs to an individual (me!) instead of the company. The Track Dog simply got to the point where it wasn't worth doing further development. Parts were gradually liberated for other projects, and that's part of how the car became a non-functional shell. I suspect this is a fairly typical story for shop development cars - they do their job, then become organ donors.

Remember, also, that race cars are tools. They might be romantic icons for those from outside, but from the viewpoint of the drivers and team, they're a machine - a tool. Once they can no longer do the job they exist to do, they're an impediment. A very few become famous due to big victories or become retroactively famous as one of their drivers goes on to do something interesting. But the vast majority are just in the way. So they get parked in fields until the romance overtakes the fact that it's a worn-out, obsolete machine.

Keith Tanner wrote:

Swank Force One wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: Hey, it happens. This poor guy has been gathering dust in the back of the Flyin' Miata shop since 2004 or so.

Is that the Lap Dog? Any future plans for it?

Track Dog. It's for sale. Come buy it and make something interesting. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151991618701631.1073741835.175988061630&type=3 We don't have a showroom, and not enough walk-in customers to give up a few thousand square feet just to display an obsolete race car. It's gone Racecar too far to really be turned back into a street car. We had a cover on it for a while, but needed the cover to protect a customer car instead. This picture actually shows it cleaned off and with wheels installed instead of the space savers it sat on for a while. The hood is flat black BBQ paint. This is how race cars end up being abandoned. They're obsolete, nobody wants to buy them and they just get in the way for years. And we do have two cars up on pallet shelves right now. I know a couple of race shops that store cars like that as well.

Someone should make an offer on that. I don't have the room to restore or store a race car, but I'm pretty sure it's not doing much for you guys taking up space and whatever cash you get out of it at this point is a win. I bet someone gets a decent deal.

I agree. C'mon with the offers.

kb58 wrote: This all reminds me of another reason why I never got into real racing. Participants are at the whime of rule-makers, where with just a slight change of the rulebook and your pride and joy instantly becomes a space-sucking has-been that won't sell.

+1 This is the main reason I'm not interested in doing big-money racing, apart from the big money. If the rule changes (which often benefit the "established players" who don't want any scrappy upstarts upsetting their nice stable spending competition) don't get you, some new technological advancement that you can't afford will. I have a hard enough time if some guy shows up with fresh tires!

Keith Tanner wrote: I agree. C'mon with the offers.

$500.00?

If you're serious, email me at keith@flyinmiata.com. I'll put it in front of the boss.

From the update article:

The Formula Cars & Avanti The pictures of the Ferrari Formula cars and the Avanti were part of a collection owned by noted Ferrari collector Walter Medlin of Kissimmee, Florida. According to an August 25, 2014 article in the Orlando Sentinel, when Hurricane Charley hit Florida in 2004, it blew by Medlin's lakefront Kissimmee home, ruining his metal barn on West Lake Tohopekaliga, which, sadly, held 18 Ferraris and a Studebaker Avanti.

According to the Sentinel, "Years earlier, Medlin had invited automotive writer Bill Warner to take a look at the barn's contents that were estimated to be worth $50 million to $60 million. Within months of Hurricane Charley, the IRS filed a $3 million tax lien against him and seized a 1967 Ferrari 330 P4 valued at $10 million.

Shown a picture of the destroyed barn, Warner said it held different cars but estimated a Ferrari 275GTB and a Formula 1 race car in the wreckage might be worth $1.5 million. Days later, the vehicles were removed to an undisclosed location.

In 2005, as the IRS auction of the 12-cylinder race car was going to be held, Medlin paid the $3 million he had owed since the 1980s.

"I'm sure he's very happy," said his Orlando attorney, Mark Horwitz, after Medlin's payment stopped the sale." The 71 year-old Medlin is currently serving out a 30 month prison sentence for tax evasion.

We were unable to find any recent authenticated images of the cars. Let's hope the 'undisclosed location' better protects these treasures, and that they're getting the attention they need.

that makes me sad

HappyAndy wrote:

novaderrik wrote: i was kind of hoping that this would be about Dale Earnhardt Jr's back yard

.....file under: rednecks with paychecks.

this whole thread is about "rednecks" that have worn out race cars sitting around not being used, but that label only applies in this one case for some reason... just like those other cars, every one of the cars out in his field has a cool story behind it- he even has the car that the Indy 500 winner from just a couple of days ago used to exact revenge on a track dryer at Daytona a few years ago...

jimbob_racing wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: I agree. C'mon with the offers.

$500.00?

$550.01

These are the saddest ones IMO. In South Africa, IIRC. <img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v426/Rallymodeller/Other%20car%20pics/ralleycar1_zps7yccmox1.jpg"

There were apparently six or so 240RSs in that yard.

I also found this in a yard in London, ON. It's long gone now, but at the time they wanted $300 for the shell. Wish I'd had the space.