There's a little bit of everything, from vintage utility vehicles to this 1950 Willys M-38 Jeep. In this graveyard there are 50 classic cars. The strange case of a beacon in the middle of a desert and more than 160 km from the coastĭavis-Monthan AFB: A bus tour of the world’s largest aircraft graveyard All this stuff in here is worth millions and we’ll be sitting on it for years before it all sells.In the world there are many car graveyards, but none is like this one that can be seen near the city of Düsseldorf, in western Germany. “I couldn’t run this place without it,” he says. “They could have been my pension,” he says, between sips of espresso.Īpart from the vehicle store, pretty much every square inch of space in Eurospares’ remaining six buildings is given over to rack upon rack of parts, almost all of them neatly labelled with a unique code. Not that Pumo is entirely without a heart. He regrets breaking the Maserati Ghibli SS that he bought for £10,000 from a gent in Cornwall in 2002, and the right-hand-drive Lamborghini Countach 5000 QV that he broke in 2003. When he rang me to take it away, he was suicidal.” He wired the alternator the wrong way and when he started it, it went up in flames. “One old chap had spent three years rebuilding a 308. “I’ve seen too many people go mad restoring these things to get that attached to them,” he says. Occasionally, he’ll take a call from someone who is upset about a Ferrari he’s advertising that looks roadworthy but is being broken for spares. Ferrari’s own Classiche department can make parts for seriously old cars that it is restoring for customers.Īlthough he drives a Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, Pumo is unsentimental about the cars he strips. Beyond that age, supply is managed by Maranello Classic Parts in Egham, Surrey, which also has the right to remanufacture parts. For example, Ferrari itself provides parts for cars up to 10 years old through its dealer network. Of course, Eurospares is not the only player in the game. “Not only are the prices of the cars going up the prices of their parts are, too, and we have to watch them closely or we’ll lose out.” “Everything is being restored these days,” says Pumo. It’s not unusual for people to buy parts from the company at a low price and hoard them in the hope their value will rise, just like the cars they were made for. The Eurospares team studies car and parts prices daily to see where the market is. “We’d lose a lot of money if we didn’t know what every bit of this stuff is worth.” “There’s often little relationship between the appearance of a part and its value,” he says. A flimsy strip of aluminium on the back of the 458’s shell that is a little longer than a 12in ruler and about as wide is worth £1000. He points to the front end of a Ferrari Daytona perched on a shelf high above us: “That’s £8000,” he says, simply. Pumo claims his used parts are about half the price of their new equivalents. Dad quickly realised that, with his Italian contacts, he could make a business supplying parts for Ferrari and Lamborghinis, which is how we started.”Īlthough Eurospares salvages lots of parts from the sports cars that it breaks (in the past 10 years, hundreds of Ferraris but only 15 Lamborghinis), many are new items bought from bankrupt dealers and garages – following the 2008 economic crash, the Middle East was a rich source – as well as remanufactured components from a web of global suppliers. One day a Ferrari dealer asked him if he’d pick up some spares from the factory on his next trip. “He had a couple of salons in Manchester and used to go back to Italy to buy his hairdryers. James Pumo, owner of Eurospares, offers me an espresso, before telling me his story. Nearby stands a deformed Ferrari 612 Scaglietti with half a side missing, a brace of Maserati GTs – although owing to huge impact damage, barely recognisable as such – and a 458 reduced to its roof. Ferrari to reveal new model later today.Ferrari Portofino M brings powertrain, chassis and tech upgrades.Ferrari Portofino M 2021 UK first drive.
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