Legal Files

Collectors lamented that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated our ability to do 1031 Exchanges with our collector cars. After 2017, 1031 Exchanges are limited to real estate. This also means that doing a straight exchange with a car dealer doesn’t work either. That is, going to a Porsche dealer and trading your…

Alawsuit has been filed against Jerry Seinfeld, alleging that the 1958 Porsche Speedster he sold for $1,540,000 at the March 2016 Gooding & Company Amelia Island Auction is a fake. Seinfeld politely and sensibly declined to comment on the litigation, as one would expect, so we have to rely upon the complaint filed in the…

After five years of “Legal Files” columns about this case (December 2013, p. 40; January 2014, p. 42; September 2015, p. 73), the legal battles over the #1 Cunningham Corvette seem to have come to an end. On December 21, 2018, Porter County Indiana Superior Court Judge Jeffrey W. Clymer appointed Indianapolis attorney William Baten…

Recently, “Legal Files” wrote about the end — or perhaps temporary cessation — of the litigation involving Barney Hallingby’s 1957 Ferrari 250 GT (October 2018, p. 50). The Ferrari was once the property of Andreas Gerber and Bernhard Friedli. They claimed that it was stolen in Spain in 1991. Friedli litigated the matter in Spain…

If you are a lawyer who works in the collector-car field, you get a lot of clients who are disappointed with cars they purchased from Internet ads. They aren’t all stories with unhappy endings, but they are a treasure trove of legal work. A recent victim, “Frank,” purchased a Porsche 930 from a dealer 2,000…

Recently, 24 Champion Porsche customers were shocked to discover that the approximately $2.5 million they had given to Champion as deposits on 911 GT3RS cars and other highly-allocated Porsche supercars was stolen — and no cars were ordered. Actually, the problem was that they didn’t give the money to Champion Porsche, which is located in…

When was the last time you spent Sunday morning reading the classified section of your newspaper looking for a car to buy? Been a while? Yeah, me too. The Internet has pretty much replaced newspapers as the central marketplace for used cars. That is understandable, as the Internet allows easy access to buyers and sellers…

More than nine years ago, “Legal Files” (December 2008, p. 26) reported about the seizure of a 1957 Ferrari 250 GT Pinin Farina Series I cabriolet, chassis 0799GT, from the Sharon, CT, home of noted collector Barney Hallingby. Hallingby got the car back after about a year, but the litigation over its ownership has just…

Preston Tucker sure had big dreams. After World War II ended, he embarked on an ambitious plan to design, build and market his own car. His dreams came to fruition, and his eponymous company eventually produced 51 Tucker 48s before it went down in a financial firestorm. Tucker’s car was identified as the Tucker Torpedo…

Not long ago (February 2018, p. 62), “Legal Files” reported about the Ford Motor Company lawsuit against celebrity wrestler John Cena for flipping his new Ford GT. Ford’s position is that Cena agreed to hold the GT for at least 24 months, and that his quick sale was undermining Ford’s marketing efforts. Cena’s GT popped…