Romanian billionaire with one of Europe’s largest car collections FORGOT he owned Ferrari dubbed ‘best in the world’
A ROMANIAN billionaire with one of the largest and most impressive car collections in Europe once forgot he owned a Ferrari that’s considered the “greatest ever” – for 10 years.
Ion Tiriac, a former tennis professional who briefly turned to hockey before becoming a billionaire businessman – which included a role as sports agent for Boris Becker – is perhaps best known as an avid car collector.
Indeed, so vast in Tiriac’s fleet of motors – said to consist of over 400 vehicles, from vintage models going back to 1899 through to modern sports cars like the Porsche 911 – that you can visit an entire museum dedicated to his collection.
Perhaps the biggest showpiece is the two Rolls–Royce Phantoms IV – the only collection in the world to have them.
Tiriac isn’t just about the classics either, as he also owns a plethora of hypercars, luxury EVs, and hybrids.
If anything, it seems the former sportsman has too many motors – as reportedly he once forgot he owned an incredibly rare supercar.
In an interview posted on the Tiriac Collection YouTube channel, the man himself revealed how owning a Ferrari F40 supercar simply slipped his mind.
Țiriac claimed he owned two F40s, with the first bought from iconic Formula 1 driver Gerhard Berger – who drove for Ferrari between 1987 and 1989, and again from 1993 to 1995.
In the interview, Tiriac reveals that an unnamed collector tried to buy the F40 model from him – which he rejected – and instead he bought another F40.
Tiriac added: “I put it in Germany, in Munich somewhere, in the garage for 10 years.”
“I have Ferraris for almost 10 years, and I forgot my Ferraris, so I had to sell them the first day when I get them out because I didn’t know where to put them.
“They had to go back to Maranelo to dismount the engines, to put them back because for 10 years those cars didn’t move.”
Forgetting an F40 in your garage is an impressive feat, considering the ultra-rare motor – which the Italian brand only built 1,311 examples of – was Ferrari’s fastest, most powerful, and most expensive car for sale at the time.
Today, it’s considered one of their most iconic, remembered fondly as the final Ferrari motor personally approved by Enzo Ferrari before his death.
In 2013, Evo magazine described it as “the greatest road-going Ferrari of all”
The average price for an F40 today is around £2 million.
Elsewhere, a Ferrari once owned by a 1990s rock legend is set to sell for just £45,000, and it comes with a hidden detail left over from the musician.
And a burned out and rusted classic Ferrari has gone up for sale for a whopping £120,000 – with cheeky petrolheads asking “what’s the mileage?”