Rare Ferrari F50 turns up wrecked in salvage yard bidding battle

The mania for classic Ferraris that's made them the most valuable cars in the world has trickled down in recent years to a select few of the automaker's more recent vehicles. For example, the F50 supercar, of which only 349 were built back in the 1990s, have seen their prices skyrocket, with one selling for $1.7 million in August. Which makes this example seem like a steal at just $103,000 — although its location in a Connecticut insurance salvage yard and the details surrounding its arrival there have raised Ferrari aficionados' suspicions.

When there's ony 349 copies of a particular car, their owners and whereabouts tend to be well known, and in the case of Ferraris even the VIN numbers are often kept track of over the decades after passing through auctions. This particular F50 had more fame than most; sold for $528,000 in 2002, it had been the recipient of a new 4.7-liter V-12 from the factory after its original 513-hp unit went to the scuderia in the sky. Of the 56 F50s built by Ferrari for the United States, this one was the final one, and only one of two in black. And its more recent owners hadn't been shy about public demonstrations of its potential, as caught in a number of online videos like this one: