A 250 GTE Personal Site, by Luke Kowalski, in northern California

Acquisition of #4823, Interception, Resources, Restoration, GTE scale models, GTE pics repository

Acquisition:

On February 24th, 2002, my wife and I were driving to Livermore to see her parents and I let it slip that I bid on a Ferrari on E-Bay, Item # 1807086518. I have always wanted to own a V-12, and I have been looking at all the models during various events (Concorso Italiano, as well as the Hillsborough Concours), doing the research, and bugging people in the know. I settled on the 250 GTE after realizing that Lussos were out of my league, and after talking to Len Miller, a most gracious host to the 250 GTE registry for over 25 years, as well as my neighbor in San Carlos, CA. I only wish I had been able to buy his car...
Officially, I had been planning to acquire a GTE at the end of 2004, when my wife would be finished with her MBA.
Upon hearing my confession, my wife had inquired about the abount I bid. I told her that it was low, so low that I could resell it at a profit in one week, even if the car was in Belgium and I had to get it here.... To my surprise, she asked how much the car was worth and then asked for me to hand over the Kyocera, a wireless Palm Pilot/Phone device that included the EBay mobile applications. She bid that exact amount***. A message came back on the screen stating that there has been an error and the data was not transmitted. I of course asked Laurie to repeat the exercise, but she said "no go", an impulse was an impulse, it cannot be replicated. When we arrived (with my 1 year old in tow) to see the in-laws, I went upstairs to check where the bidding was on the car. To my surprise, my bid did go through, and I was the high bidder ! Sadly, I was eventually outbid by two different folks. But...they both flaked !!!!! I e-mailed the seller, asking if he was going to relist the car, or whether he was interested in offers after I had a chance to inspect the car. He said yes to the latter. Arie Mandemakers at AME engineering did an excellent job and sent me all the data in a fax. At first I passed on the car because he did such a good job of finding problems, but after realizing that the engine and the body were basically sound, I made an offer a few $K bellow my high bid from before. The seller, with whom I now developed a relationship (lots of annoying e-mails from me) agreed, perhaps knowing that the car would not be chopped up or rebodied as a fake GTO for the gold chain set.
Shipping was a nightmare. I found a good price on the shipping, but all the charges at Oakland, the destination port, made me cringe (e-mail if you want an itemization of what it costs to ship a car from Europe). Let's just say that it is a lot less expensive to ship from the USA to Europe.
On May 16, as I am writing this chapter, the ship Ever Round (Evergreen lines, container #EMCU3011855) arrived at 7.35 am. I was tracking the container as it traveled from Rotterdam to the East coast, through the Panama Canal, and on to Long Beach and Oakland. After I pay off the various shipping unions, give some more "mullah" to the US Customs, she will be mine. The Interception story will follow shortly...I just picked up the car from the port.
Here are the pics from Ebay and the ones taken at inspection of the car in Kesteren, Holland.

***My wife states that she was under influence of maternal hormons and not acting rationally when she placed the bid (I say Bless her heart !)