Grand theft auto?

If you’re a collector of rare old cars, and your rare old car gets stolen, there may be a Ford in your future. That would be Joe Ford, a Florida private eye.

Joe Ford specializes in recovering cars whose value lies in not being driven much at all: rare, collectible, fetishized cars that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions or tens of millions of dollars, prized not for their ability to get from here to there but rather for their beauty, the artistry of their design, the care with which they were built, and perhaps most of all, their provenance.(Source: Esquire)

For a non-car person – and I am most decidedly a non-car person – I do get a kick out of classic cars. I’ve been to the Heritage Museum in Sandwich (on Cape Cod) a few times, much enjoying their collection of old timers.

I’ve also been to Lars Anderson Park in Brookline, which houses the country’s oldest car collection.

And every year, there’s a classic car show on Boston Common, and I love walking around, ogling old Bel Airs, Mustangs, and Packards.

Most of these cars are plenty costly, but the cars the Joe Ford hunts down are truly high end:

“I’m in a niche of a niche of a niche,” he says.

In terms of business, being in a niche, even a niche of a niche, is often a good thing. If you’re a small outfit, it gives you focus. It’s easier to express your value to customers and prospects. If they think you know something about them – their industry, their issues – they’re more apt to go with you, and may even pay a premium for your services. And being in a niche let’s you develop a very fine-tuned expertise.

Thus, Joe Ford.

People truly love their cars, and the market reflects this.

In 2017, classic cars topped the Coutts Passion Index, a list of the British bank’s top passion investments, increasing in value by more than 300 percent in the past decade to bypass assets like wine, jewelry, and artwork.

A collectible Bel Air could cost you $125K. Steve McQueen’s 68 Mustang would go for millions. Then there’s this:

A 1927 Bugatti Royale, one of six ever made, a twenty-one-foot-long, seven-thousand-pound commercial failure upon its debut, would be worth an estimated $100 million should one ever become available.

Forget the $100 million price tag for this unicorn. A twenty-one-foot-long car? Wow! When I was an urban car owner, I developed mad parallel parking skills, but even in my prime, I don’t believe I could have maneuvered a twenty-one-foot-long car into a tight parking spot.

Back to Joe Ford, he’s not on the hunt for that unicorn Bugatti.

No, his current great white whale is a 1938 Lago Teardrop with a value of $7.6 million.

Well, who wouldn’t want that honey of an automobile? How fun would it be to tootle around in that one? Talk about a work of art deco.

When it debuted, its wealthy owners commissioned custom wardrobes to match its colors and lines—society-page fixtures using it to make grand entrances at balls.

One of the few cars I’ve owned was blue, and I do wear quite a bit of blue. But the closest I ever came to customizing anything to do with a car was deciding between a fake black-eyed Susan and a fake daisy for the vase in that blue Beetle. (Having been a Beetle owner, I guess it’s no surprise that I’m drawn to the Teardrop. High cute factor in both.)

Anyway, the Esquire article gets into all sorts of details on car thievery and car forgery, with a side-theme on a business partnership gone well awry. No honor among thieves, it seems.

I can’t say I read every word of this loooonnnnggg article. But that car. Be still my non-car person heart

I’ll leave Joe with the last word:

“Some cars speak to me,” [Joe Ford] says…. “This one screams.”

Good luck, Joe. Hope you nab that Teardrop. I’ll give you a shout if I see anyone trying to parallel park it – or that 21-foot Bugatti – on Beacon Hill.