Description
The movie “Gone in Sixty Seconds” and its remake are based on real-life techniques by which thieves steal cars, remove their VINs, and resell them. But, as this fast-paced book explains, car theft is at an entirely different level when it involves the “passion investments” of the most exclusive, rare sports cars. Millionaires across the globe compete in collecting and restoring (and occasionally driving) these valuable acquisitions. The tales told here involve insurance fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, forgery, and much more.
Primarily, the author focuses on two individuals. Once partners in buying and selling exotic vehicles, Joe Ford and Chris Gardner became sworn enemies, locked in legal battles for years as they fought over a seven-million-dollar car. Who is the rightful owner? Who stole it from an old man’s warehouse? Moving from the playgrounds of the rich to the Wisconsin Superior Court, from jailhouse to a Swiss villa, readers will keep turning the pages, fascinated by the text and aided by plenty of photographs that illustrate the luxury cars at stake. The author wisely leaves it up to us to decide which of the protagonists we believe more—or perhaps, which of them seems less of a liar than the other.