Buried Treasure

I received this as an email...

We all grow up digging around in sand boxes hoping to strike it rich andfind some hidden ancient treasures. What we typically findis an old Matchbox car or a present left behind by a cat. Either way it’s veryrare to find something desirable. Well, that’s not quite the case with a younggroup of boys in California. They were diggingin their yard when they found something that would make anyone’s jawdrop and their mouth start drooling. In 1978, these kids were digging in theiryard when they came across something big, something metal, and something veryvery valuable. A buried Ferrari!


The boys actually discovered a 1974 FerrariDino 246 GTS buried just a few feet under the dirt in their yard. The familyhad just moved into the house and immediately called authorities who came androped off the area. A team of investigators arrived and unearthed the rare car.


After exhuming the Italian sports car, it wasobvious that someone had planned on returning to retrieve the vehicle. It wasvery crudely mummified with towels in the vents and tape on many of the seamshowever the windows weren’t fully closed causing a lot of interior damage.

Farmers Insurance was contacted and because ofthe VIN number they traced the last owner. After the investigation, it turnsout that the owner of the car had actually hired thieves to steal the car anddump it in the ocean so he could claim insurance on it. The thieves buried thecar with the intention of returning to pick it up.


The buried Ferrari was then auctioned offafter being on display with the incredible story being reported across thenation. It was purchased by a young mechanic who owned his own shop inCalifornia. The going price was estimated to be between $5,000 and $9,000.

He fully restored the buried Ferrari and oftenenters the car into car shows. Here are the pictures of the car after thecomplete restoration.

Everything on the car has been restored to theexact factory condition. However, this car comes with some incredible historyand an awesome story.

The car even has a vanity plate which reads“DUG UP”.
How perfect is that ?

Amazing story Clive.

One of my friends worked on the M5. A colleague there travelled down some distance to work for a week. He stole a car to get there and they buried it!!

Great story Clive.

Unbelievable. There must have been some strange goings on for somebody to want to bury that car.
But i can't believe it only sold for that amount at Auction.

They were around $14000 new in 1974. There'd be many more still around back in 1978 so the demand for one that had been buried for a few years and in need of restoration probably wouldn't be that great. Regarded by many Ferrari aficionados as among the best, most desirable models made it'd fetch a small fortune today in similar circumstances!

frank rabbets said:

Amazing story Clive.

One of my friends worked on the M5. A colleague there travelled down some distance to work for a week. He stole a car to get there and they buried it!!

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I too worked on the M5 Frank, the first construction and the widening of the Birmingham end of it to three lanes sometime later. The story of buried cars (and a few other dodgy items too) was not uncommon in the motorway construction industry!

We had a visit from the police on one such occasion and they parked their Austin A40 patrol car in the compound and entered the site office to interview the project manager "assisting with their enquiries".

A few moments later there was a rumpus, one of the fitters had reversed a Cat 651 motor scraper over the A40, "accidentally" coming out of the workshop.

The police were gob-smacked of course, but there was little they could do in the circumstances. Officially, they should have parked in the visitors car park

There were some rough diamonds in the business in those days, most of the drivers in the scraper fleet were on the run from someone or another, the police, ex-wives, mafia mobs, you name it

For those that don't know what a Cat 651 is, they ain't small......

Would have made light work of an A40 with that!!

Hi Clive,

They described what they'd used as an earth scraper so I think that was the one.

frank rabbets said:

Hi Clive,

They described what they'd used as an earth scraper so I think that was the one.

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It's a shame in a way Frank, with the better technology of modern backhoe excavators, what was the most efficient earthmoving machinery (the scrapers) have been replaced with backacters and trucks. There are loads of scrapers gone for scrap now, usually only used in open cast mining, not on road jobs anymore.

There are many different types makes and sizes, the 651s are big, but the 637s were a little smaller but more popular, with Terex TS 24s and several others.

Several major contractors in those days had fleets of between 10 and 15 of those monsters, with dozers to push them to match, usually big Cat D9s or D10s, they were big brutes in their own right.

Imagine, those scrapers could run a cycle of 80 tons payload at 40 mph on a long haul, it was an incredible sight when 12 or so we're working as a team on a summer 18 hour shift.

Most drivers worked them for about 3 years, any longer and they would have serious liver damage from the "bronco" effect from diving them.