Where the law starts
Yesterday, we included the 1950 Mercury custom from Cobra in our list of lost and sometimes found Hollywood cars; today, in a bizarre coincidence, it’s in the news.
The street rod (with “Awsom 50″ plate, as you may recall) was the personal property of car guy Stallone (he once owned an original AC Cobra, and currently has a stable that includes a Ferrari 612 Scag, a hideously highly customized Mustang GT, Deuce-style streetrod and others), and turned up consigned to a Monterrey auction this summer. Last night, celebrity gossip site TMZ reported that the car had actually been stolen from Stallone’s garage in 1994 and while he knew its whereabouts, never managed to recover it. But after seeing the car at Monterrey, Stallone and his lawyer first apparently got Lot S101 withdrawn from the sale – our records show it never crossed the block – and then, on November 25, filed a lawsuit in L.A. County Superior Court for its return, along with $3 million in damages.
A hearing in Sylvester Stallone vs. Ray Claridge, DBA Cinema Vehicle Services (which has what appears to be a Starsky & Hutch Torino, by the way), has been scheduled for March 16–if you’re in Santa Monica, drop by the courthouse and let us know what happens. There will be a whole lot of questions to be answered of the “If you knew where it was FOR 15 YEARS, why didn’t you report it stolen and get a warrant?” variety, but this time he’s going for a subtle solution.
Bottom line: They touched his car, and that’s bad for your health.