There is a sequel to the story about the Hoare Ferrari 246 and it's reincarnation as a race car.
The late Mr Logan Fow and Briton Neil Corner struck a deal on the sale of the car which was quite simple. Mr Fow would ship the car and all the related parts to the UK and Mr Corner would pay for a brand new Ferrari BB512 which Mr Fow would collect from H.R.Owens in London. This deal was done under the then existing Tourist Delivery scheme and was arranged by the then New Zealand concessionaires for Ferrari the Torino Group of companies. Accordingly Mr Fow made arrangements to uplift the Ferrari and use it in the UK for twelve months, which the scheme required, and then ship it back to New Zealand.
The first problem occurred when the price of the car went up from that originally ageed to but this was apparently solved and the car was delivered to Mr Fow. So Mr Fow took delivery of his beautiful Ferrari in red and black withcream leather upholstery. Mr Fow lived in the UK for the required period working I believe at an exclusive boy's school. He then shipped the car back to New Zealand by sea, flew home and waited for his car to arrive. The car landed on the docks at Auckland and Mr Fow went to Customs in Hamilton with his baggage sufferance documents but for some reason they were unwilling or unable to process the clearance through that office.
This is where my involvement begins. At the time I was the Service Manager for the Torino Group and as such one of my responsibilities was to oversee the clearance of such vehicles from the wharves. Our Torino receptionist announced that I had a visitor and Mr Fow walked into my office. He had ridden from Hamilton to Auckland on a Honda step through and appeared in old yellow water proof gear carrying an open face helmet. He explained his situation and I sought the assistance of our in house customs agent. We then proceeded to go through the normal channels for clearing such a car and then discovered we had a major problem. It appeared from the documents we had that Mr Fow had not owned the Ferrari in the UK for the required twelve months and was in fact two days short and because of this was due to pay horrendous sales tax and duty before he could land his Ferrari. Mr Fow's explanation was that he had collected the car on a Friday and had returned to H.R.Owens the following Monday to complete the paperwork. Despite our best efforts with telexes back and forward to H.R.Owens with Customs keeping an eye on the proceedings that beautiful car sat in an Auckland wharf shed collecting dust and bird droppings. It was still there 18 months later when I left Torinos to start my own business. The car now resides in Dunedin and next time I am down that way will make a point of at least paying it a visit.
Allan