My Ferrari got stolen (why I'll never replace it)

I want to share with you for the first time my story of the stolen Ferrari around Christmas time. So this would be late 2021, before I eventually bought the car in the spring of 2022. I was in a tremendous period of, at the time, undiagnosed and unresolved illness. It's relating to a heart condition which thankfully is fully resolved now. No amount of time rest, even medicine at the time was giving me any improvement and any real quality of life. It really stopped me in my tracks. And the one thing that eventually gave me some hope and I saw some progress with, even if it was only stabilising my condition rather than curing or resolving it, was hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Hbot. And as it relates to the car, the Ms. Therapy Centre was based on an industrial estate just around the corner from the big car dealerships in Leeds. These are the same garages that I used to go past as a kid in the back of the car with my mum and my sister and would usually point and go, oh wow, Mummy, look at that one, look at that one. I wonder how much that one costs, kind of thing. One day I said, fuck it, what would five year old James do? And I walked in and I saw this car again. I went in there completely humble, saying I shouldn't really be here, I don't think I belong in here, but this is the situation. I told them the backstory, I just had no idea what they would cost. So I found one, a beautiful all black triple black. It did have the carbon bits as well, but it was otherwise completely black with just the yellow calipers and yellow cavallino, the yellow headrest or whatever it is, and the yellow crests of course, on the outside. And this I was doing for myself. I wasn't doing it to impress others, genuinely. So my sister was the only person who knew in advance that I was going to make that purchase, apart from one other person, and that was a person at an independent body shop around the corner. I'd seen that they were specialists in ppf, paint protection, film and other detailing, customization. And these guys looked like they were doing an amazing job on social media. They'd had a URUS in there the day before. I took mine in and they'd. The reason I know that is because they put it up on the social media. I took it there immediately out of discipline, so that I didn't open it up and risk getting stone chippings on the way to paying for this ppf. I was like, look, I'll leave it with You. I've got a work trip this coming week. I'll come back and then I know that it's all ready to go and I can really take it out on the roads and fully enjoy it. So I'd never even taken it home. There was some unusual behavior now in hindsight that the sales rep at JCT in Leeds had noticed when he was dropping me off there. So he'd follow me behind in one of the new roamers so that he could give me a lift back when we'd taken the car there. And I remember him saying at the time, oh, he likes, he likes it, doesn't he? Something like that. I went, huh? I went, huh. So it's like getting in the Roma, having just dropped it off in a flash. I was still like full of adrenaline and everything else. Dopamine. Oh. Oh, yeah. He said, look, he's taking. I said, that's going straight up on Instagram. So what was happening was he was presumably allegedly taking all those pictures and sending them to somebody on the inside. I suspect this place, it had no rhino posts up. Supposedly that night CCTV was not running or was not angled to capture it that night. But I received a call at 9:30 from the guy at the body shop to say I shouldn't do the accent but I'm on WhatsApp audio. I'm really sorry but your car's been stolen. I wasn't like immediately animators, like, right, I think I said right as in what are you going to tell me next? Because this is clearly a wind up or just some bullshit. And he repeated it pretty much again. I just remember the tone, it was emotionless, which wouldn't be the case if you were literally shitting yourself calling a customer to say, your Ferrari's just been fucking stolen. I just remember something was off at the time. You know what they say about gut feel. It's not your gut, it's your limbic brain, the reptilian brain, which is ridiculously well engineered and evolved to make great judgment calls when something is not quite right tonality or whatever it is. I put the phone down. I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to fall for a potential scam. He might have said the police are here or something like that. So I replied saying, have them ring me. And I think he just continues to try and call me. So then the police called mobile number and yeah, they, they broke the news to me. There was a gulf of are that they recovered 400 meters down the road. But the Ferrari was Never recovered. So why then did they supposedly use the Ferrari, my car, as a battering ram to smash out of the roller shutters to then steal the Golf that was further in the showroom and then needed my car out of the way and of course the shutter out of the way to drive out and steal. Supposedly my car was just collateral damage in the theft of a Golf. So why was the Golf left just down the road? Seemed like some bullshit. They couldn't find it in the area. The police looked for days and I suspect that they did get closer to who it was in the end because all of a sudden they had to back off and it went cold and they concluded that despite all of the other things that I've mentioned around adequate security measures not being in place and all these unusual circumstances like CCTV not running or capturing any of it that night and all the rest, the post not being up that night and yeah, like I say, having just had a URUs, a high value vehicle in there for a few days, released that day, surely they've been operational. These guys were the only people other than my sister who I don't think were doing an inside job to know that I was buying that car, to know in advance because I was getting the quote for the bodywork and said, oh, send us a few pictures just so we can confirm the price. So I suspect, guys, allegedly, I have no proof of this, that the car was stolen to order, somebody was tipped off in advance and an organised crime ring was probably involved. Allegedly. That's just my opinion. My health just. It was first recovering around this time since we lapsed and the six months afterwards were absolute hell. I was really at breaking point where I thought, I'm not going to get the payout and, you know, life's I'm screwed. It was a reminder sent from the universe or whatever you want to believe that if you spend money on these flash things, you attract the wrong attention. And I didn't replace the car because not only was I pending the settlement for months on end and it was uncertain, but the handover documents with like the air deflect, wind deflector and everything else were in the boot, the trunk, because I'd taken it straight there. I was like, ah, just leave it in there, I'll pick it up next week. So they had my home address as well as my name on the papers in the boot, in the car and my. As well as the original plates, my number plate, which I was transferring on my private reg that I otherwise still had currently at that point assigned to my existing car. So I thought, one way or another, I'm going to be retargeted. Worse still, they're probably going to be tipped off or notified when a. Or if a successful claim is settled, because it will be against the liability of the body shop. So, yeah, what we can take away from this, guys, is that to live with the stress and worry that comes with owning a vehicle like that, even to the point of now, in hindsight, worrying so much about getting a stone chipping that you've got to go and put PPF on it. You've got to go through that process and everything else. It's like, is there not more to life than adding on all of that worry for something that, sure, it's exciting, but hedonic treadmill. The feeling will fade over time as it becomes familiar. Is it really worth it? And my conclusion was that I was stopped or that I'd almost done it, I'd literally done it, but I was stopped so I could get a refund, if you like, by the claim process, by the universe, because I wasn't meant to own that. I wasn't meant to go down that path and have my money tied up there. I was meant to be free and I was meant to learn a lesson and be given a reminder that, yeah, there are jealous people out there and it's not worth involving yourself in this kind of thing. Stick to your discipline, invest your money, have it out of show. If you walk down the street, nobody knows that you might have a million quid in shares in a retirement account or even in your personal account. Nobody knows that unless you tell them. But if you park up in a Ferrari, people, people are going to see. And until or unless you're in a country where there's absolute security, absolute safety, particularly if you have a family of your own, which I had yet to do at that point. It's not worth it at all, at all. And I'd never do it again in those circumstances. But now that I have the freedom and also have the lessons and I have, you know, the freedom in terms of safety, freedom to choose where to live and I can prioritize safety when the time comes to have family of my own, then, you know, maybe if I want to do the car in the future, I'd do it again. But buying a Ferrari in the uk? Fuck that. Keep your money in the stock market, let it compound for you. And frankly, whilst it's not a company I own, it's been on my short list. You'd be far better off having the cost of a Ferrari invested in the stock than you would having it parked on your drive. Or perhaps temporarily having it parked in a body shop, only to be receiving that call a few hours later. So that's the story of the stolen Ferrari. I owned it for less than a day. Didn't think I'd ever own one again, but might go there in the future since I found this freedom. Keep safe.