A foolish German person attempted to steal a 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO but failed miserably – although he has successfully eluded the police…so far.
Posing as a car collector, the foolish German person had expressed an interest in purchasing the 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO (with only 27,000 miles on the odometer and reportedly worth $2.2 million) and used the old-fashion ruse of a test drive in the German city of Düsseldorf. Police say, after arriving by taxi to the dealership and two hours later – on a test drive – when it was time to swap drivers, the seller stepped out of the car, but the suspect quickly hit the accelerator and vanished.
A bright “Rosso Corsa” red 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO tends to attract human eyeballs, however, and after Dusseldorf police had issued an appeal for witnesses, the car was quickly found on Tuesday evening hidden in a garage in the nearby town of Grevenbroich.
The suspect, however, remains at large and Dusseldorf police have released a photograph of the man [below] inspecting the Ferrari before the theft. The managing director of the dealership reported that he had exchanged calls and emails with the man over the course of a number of weeks.
The listing for the car on the dealer’s website says it once belonged to former Northern Ireland Formula 1 driver Eddie Irvine – who raced for Ferrari between 1996 and 1999 – and only 272 of the Ferrari 288 GTO’s were ever built.
