The Cuban Gullwing Scam!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
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#VINwiki #Cuba #300SLGullwing
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You should have just befriended some Canadians, Cuba's a wonderful and legal vacation destination for us up north, you'd just have needed a Canadian to buy and ship it here, then resell it to 'Muricah. Electroboom(Canadian) just brought his wife and kids down there a few months ago and did some videos about exploding...testing...their hotel electrical systems....
😬😬 th-cam.com/video/dCaPUYKs5Zc/w-d-xo.html 😬😬
These things are downright dangerous!!!! Find videos on youtube and you know why. Don't let your life rely on these sticks!
Hey ED Id stop advertising those, they dont work for shit. Go look up some videos of it in use. Usually makes the fire worse...
@Vinwiki
I'm baffled by "The engine failed and it was parked under the fateful banana tree". In CUBA?! The can keep ANY car running! I'm surprised it wasn't swapped with a industrial stationary diesel engine and used as a taxi.
Maybe there was some legal issue that we dont know about. So they casually said it's parked because it's broken.
Also not sure how can one use that car as a taxi... Do you even realize what this car model is?!
Anyway
Plenty of cases where owners go to jail, die, vanish, and nobody can source their belongings etc and in this case a car rots away in some place that they don't have ownership over.
Also add there the factor of hoarders. People hoard stuff they never use ...
Reminded me of one example.
My friend's father had couple of cars but they were stored in a place someone else owns, a new owner since he sold the property and never came back for anything ...
His father had health issues and stopped working, bills and other crap stacked up so he owed everyone a lot of money, so when repos came for those cars they were escorted out and banned to enter by the new owner! The new owner said 'if you want something sue me take me to court otherwise move on'.
So they written off those cars since it's not worth the legal hassle.
Eventually about 10 years later those cars simply rotted away and ended up carried out in bins ...
I hope you learned something from this so as similar examples, have a good day ...
Oh and speaking of Taxi I bet the engine was repaired and used in an actual Taxi XD that is more probable then using this car as a taxi as OP said XD
I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the plan and that’s why the motor was taken completely out to begin with. But I’d bet someone didn’t have the money to do it at the time in Cuba, which was pretty hard to do back then, and that’s why it sat.
As a cuban and someone who has made a career in the automotive industry, it pains me to see how many great cars went to die in my country
It would seem that the nation, to help itself and the people, would want to sell these cars or relics while the car restoration hobby is at its peak right now. And of course that sort of thing has been happening here for years, barn finds or backyard relics or whatever and why not, people have something of value and they'd rather have the money than the old car or parts car.
@@robbchastain3036 well the problem is that you are thinking with rationality. Communist dictators and specially the Castro family don’t care about the well being of their people. So unless they see a benefit for their pockets they don’t allow anything. Believe me, any car that left Cuba only did it because someone from the Castro family allowed it and got pay for it.
You guys keep cars running like nobody else
your country is beautiful and the cars are wonderful to see. But you're right it's a shame because they cant afford to maintain them properly let alone put a toyota diesel in a 1952 chevy lol
Didn't they keep most alive...and still driving today?
It takes just a glimpse to know that blue POS is a terrible replica because the proportions are all wrong.
You are absolutely right !
Deadass, I’m glad it wasn’t my mind playing tricks on me that thing looks fucked up
Quelle surpreeze. Adds even more insult to injury with that asking price. Complete joke.
You should cover the outcome of the F40 that was stolen, taken to Europe, sold then stolen again sold to someone in Japan then came back. Or something like that. I know it was convoluted and they weren't sure who should actually get the car. The guy writing the check, or the guy who had it stolen from the second time, or the guy who still had the guy with the title. Also wasn't there a Japanese Lamborghini Countach or Diablo that was imported by Russian gangsters and was supposed to be given to the Yakuza but the night before hand over, the car was stolen by street gangs and it was hidden away in a farm house like 3 prefectures away and then the police found it but every name on the title was bogus, the serial number couldn't be verified, and since it was on the farmer's property, they gave it to him. I don't know if that's a real story or not, but I remember hearing about it years ago from a podcast.
Can u remeber any off these podcast names these storys seem intresting
He already did a video on this car. It was a sick video
We love content with Ed! The premier story teller of Vinwiki
"It looked like I had built a car", the honesty in that statement is great.
So many things that are so, so wrong, but it’s the plywood steering wheel at 7:00 that made me actually laugh out loud.
the ivory color SL is goddamn beautiful. probably one of the nicest looking cars in the world.
"Bass Boat Blue" is easily the best line I ever heard delivered on this channel.
It's a 'ground up' restoration which can mean it's ALL NEW apart from one part such as the Vin plate.
In the early 1980s, one of my local banks had a gullwing in the parking lot with a for sale sign and with a few other car. They were all bank repossessions. It was just an Old Mercedes back then.
I remember going into a local used dealer backing around 1994 and they had a absolutely mint 69 fastback mustang complete with louvers. The car was perfect and they were asking 13,000 and everyone thought that was insane
Funny frase "which one is more real".
Remembers me of a story I heard here in Paraguay, where somebody, during the 90s, while registering a VW Saveiro he had purchased, ran into a lot of trouble, since the VIN was already registered.... twice. After some digging it came to light that the VW factory in Brasil had had a malfuntion and four (some say 7) Saveiros had left the factory with the same VIN. Upon learning this story and locating atleast 3 of the cars, he was able to buy a registered one, which was already pretty much scrap metal. So now he legally owns a registered saveiro, which ist used for parts, and drives the IDENTICAL twin, which he initially couldn´t get registered, using the papers of it´s (dead) brother. If I knew who told me this it would be fun to get an update on it.
I was in Los Pinos in 1997, the neighborhood where they kept the cars, there were two examples, Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing & Roadster, and they had other cars , Chrysler Thomas Special Fastback by Ghia, Fiat Abarth 750 Zagato Double Bubble, Maserati A6G 2000 Frua Spyder 1951, 1954 Buick Skylark Convertible, the owner's name was Alberto
That car looks like someones side project to make a copy of a Gullwing, just like home made Lamborghinis on top of pontiac fierros and whatnot, complete with wood screws and angle iron welded everywhere...
I can see someone coming across a reproduction "lamborghini fierro" some day that's really not worth anything, but trying to add provenance to it with a cool story.
I hadn't heard of the European restoration, very cool and plausible.
There's a fake 300SL in San Diego. It's very close to the original.
Ed your still the top story teller on Vinwiki love everyone else but there's still something about the way you tell a story its like your there. 👏
I’ve been to Cuba. I’ve seen two Mercedes of that era. While neither were gulf wings. There were surely valuable era cars. One was in dire need of restoration. The other was in a very nice driver condition. A maroon one in Mantanzas.
What car should we try to dig up next?
The crashed Lexus LFA in Singapore
The blue gemballa mirage gt from New York! What happened to it?
Hoovies buried Chrysler convertable
Midnight club porsche 930
@@samiam5557 I was literally about to say that
Some years back, there was an automotive "Survivors" series, and one of the cars featured was a Mercedes-Benz 540 (K?) that had once been given as a gift to a very senior Soviet leader, just prior to Germany going on an extended sigh-seeing tour into Poland, back in 1939. The story was that when the Germans also decided on going on yet another extended sight-seeing tour in Russia (See "Operation Barbarossa,") it was no longer "favorable" to own such a high-profile German car, so it was eventually stored "under wraps," (tarp?) in the farmhouse of a Soviet general of sorts. Fast forward to the 1970s (?) a junior diplomat from Finland heard about the car and was able to purchase it. There are even some pictures of said junior diplomat proudly driving around what was left of the once-grand Merc., and with all the attention the car was getting, he started to worry about whether or not he would be permitted to keep the car. At any rate, he then decided to go on a "vacation" with the car, to Finland, and once out of the USSR, he wisely decided not to go back. This is about all that I can remember on this story, and an e-mail to a Merc historian yielded no results, as this is a time period in which Merc definitely does not like to dwell. In fact, another rumor is that such Merc's with notorious histories are kept in a special "hidden" collection, not available for viewing to anyone. Would this be a story you might be interested in following in a future episode?
highly articulate and compelling depiction of a sad story.
As a Costa Rican I feel very bad to see someone trying to offer this car as a 300 SL and trying to make a scam out of it. It is obvious by looking at the proportions, and pictures in general that it is far from being a 300SL. Don't know what he is thinking, by trying to fool someone around this... We have a very nice car culture locally and very talented technicians that do proper restorations who have won best in class in Concours like Pebble Beach, Amelia Island, etc. Please don't interpret this horror story as a national way of doing business or restorations. In Costa Rica there was indeed a 300SL that came from Cuba (it came with a 190 SL as well), but that is a different car than the one that is sitting under the banana tree mentioned in this video. The Cuban car that came here happened in the 1980s and was in much better shape. Ed, I sent you to your instagram inbox more details and pictures on the story of that car. Big fan of your videos, keep up the good work!!
Grab a seat and settle down Ed is in a storytelling mood again, One day Ed, maybe one day dreams might come true
I know there is a gullwing door in Kansas city ! Was sitting in a basement in the 60s
If im not mistaken, there’s a 300SL roadster in Cuba previously owned by businesman Gustavo Otero (pre Castro)
I can't stand that there are so many fake ads. I'm pretty confident in my ability to spot them and avoid them. I've even got my son pretty well keyed in on them (I don't have to hurt his feelings every time he sees a "$400" dirt bike ad anymore). Some people just don't have "the eye" for it, I guess, and I hate that people are getting scammed.
This is an issue more of human behavior than the app, but I also hate the single picture ads, just as much as the 15 picture ads all taken from ridiculously awkward angles and painful closeups. There should be a requirement for minimum amount of photos, and ways to Flag bad photos.
I won't mention spelling and grammar.
My favorite car classified photo was on an ad in a local newspaper for a mid-1980s Buick the owner wanted $500 for a couple years ago. It was a roadside snapshot of some nice autumn foliage that clearly wasn't about the car at all; it just happens to be parked by the side of the road. Only about a third of the car is even in the shot. It's like when the guy decided to sell the car, that was the only picture in his phone's camera roll that it was even partially in. I don't even think it was a scam--I think for 500 bucks, he just couldn't be bothered to go outside and take another picture. :)
over the years i've concluded that absolutely no one knows or cares what the definition of restore is.
That blue car looks like a hunk o junk. But not bad for building from scratch from meager resources.
Single handedly best opening sentence to a video ever...... the way ed says costa rica 👌🏽👌🏽
I restore medieval armour for a living. A 'composite' armour used to mean an armour made from say three suits (Helmet, left arm and legs are from different suits).
Twenty years ago this was quite a genuine occurrence. But now... Unscrupulous dealers started deliberately splitting suits, now folks are splitting helmets! Because of course a composite armour is worth more than a single arm!
I have restored a few cars and built one which I drove across the Sahara in 97 (KSK362) so I know the car trade is at least TWICE as murky!
Illustrated perfectly in late late 90's when Jaguar invited all D-Type owners to a free weekend at Silverstone. The funny thing is, TWELVE(from memory) more D-Types turned up than were actually made! Given the amount that have been destroyed that is insane!
Provenance is all you must look for and demand thousands and thousands of before and after progress pictures, if for no other reason than you can undo what has been done.
Best wishes from an Englishman in a French forest. 🇬🇧⚒️🇺🇲
Help i cried at some of the photos😭😭
What else would you expect out of a Cuban restoration ? They still ride in 50's Chevy with Honda drive trains... Much respect but, they work with what they got.
Saddest thing ever is these stories are gonna stop eventually.. I mean these cars are going to stop popping up sooner or later and then there are no more “barn finds” like this
These cars will yes but we'll have Enzo or 918 barn finds
@@porsche928s4True, but it will be much, much harder to restore something like those modern HyperCars in the future. Because they made of plastic and computer chips, where as Classic Mercedes, like the 300 SL, are entirely analogue, and designed to be infinitely maintainable and infinitely serviceable.
@@stoneylonesome4062 I mean definitely those will be harder but stuff like an e46 m3 or Carrara GT wouldn't be to hard
Living in Bergamo (the city in Italy where Cefis lives) i had some years ago the rare fortune to casually encounter on the road the cuban SL:
The first time i saw it in normal traffic it was like being kissed by fortune itself... That is an absolutely gorgeous car!
The biggest stock of spare parts of General Motors outside the US was in Cuba. When Castro align the country with the Soviet Union and it's vehicles and technology Everything new in their boxes and wrap in wax paper was sent there as scrap metal to be melted and destroy. That's why people started putting Soviet parts and engines on their Chevys to keep them running till today.
It looks like the driver side vent window is authentic.
Damn, I am from Costa Rica and I have seen this car, I didn't know about the Cuban Gullwing story.
Interesting myth about a legendery car. But.. The car that is on most of the pictures are not the same car as Jeremy Clarkson found on his trip to cuba. That car is a probably never raced car sold to a normal customer, it is a completely different year and (head/taillight, instrument, seats, doors and so on) it still has all the luxury extras remaning in the car. For this story to be more interesting, you have to separate the two different stories/cars.
They where restoring the car in cuba there are also a couple other sl’s I was told they are in Havana there are also quite a few porches as well (I’m half Cuban and own 3 cars in cuba) most of the cars here have modern diesel engines. And are hacked together.
I remember Clarkson showing the wreck back in the 90’s and since then have always wondered what happened to the car. Thanks for letting me know.
As a kid i saw once a chevy from the end 50's in a barn in serbia.. and in crete a buick riviera +-1970 abandoned
It would be quite beneficial to use that story on one you actually pieced together
Seeing that first picture should have ended all pursuits of this. It may be placed over that B200 but the body appears to use a newer 190SL as it's base.
Mr. Mix - I agree. I don't think Ed put enough research into this story as I know there is far more to it. He just covered the surface. Nice "story" though and good for clicks.
I seen an alloy gullwing sinking into the ground in a barn outside St Joseph Mo. back in 88. Parked as a decent but slightly damaged in a house fire car and left to rot on purpose because the owner had "gone away" . This was absolutely an aluminum car. No doubts... It was pretty destroyed at this point. I am certain that is where one of these cars died.
Anymore info? Would love to search a bit more into it and see if the car ever made it out.
Yeah, it was in a warehouse in downtown leavenworth kansas in 1973, when a friend of mine wanted to buy it. Price was $ 5,000 and the fuel injection was not working. I know the name of the man selling it, my friend told me and I wrote it down ! My friend could not get the money to buy it, he begged all his relatives for money....
@@austinroberts4008 Far out. Any word of whether or not it eventually got out? And if not was there any street name or anything that could pinpoint a better location.
@@austinroberts4008 Hey mate, any better idea of location?
Great story wrap up Ed, well told as always !!!
Ed looks like that sarcastic prick friend that always makes you laugh for no reason. Lol 💯
Great story told by one of the best story tellers.
I’m dying to go over to Cuba and see all the cars they got hidden and try to bring something back. There are gems over there that people have no idea exist.
@@jonhelmer8591 bro I have family in Cuba lmao u don’t know what you’re talking about
Your 50 yes late,Colin Crabb from England got the good ones
When I was in Cuba I half jokingly asked about buying a classic. Yes they are everywhere. Most of the people dont have a car at all, so they got mad about me comming in and just trying to take something they cant have. The people who do have classics, get mad at you for thinking you can buy their inheritance or something they have lovingly maintained for 50 plus years.
Thinking you will ever get one is a fools errand.
By this point, they all have the engines from 1980s-vintage Soviet tractors in them, but...
Ed is certainly a target to these type of scams
My question is where did the body on that weird hack job come from?
Was thinking the same thing.
Sheetmetal and filler
Sounds like they made it out of fiberglass and paper mache.
@@johnsonsl944 Could be, but I think there is a chance it could be an actual Gullwing body that was just in terrible shape.
I've seen some videos from Thais who build way better Replicas in their backyards out of nothing... you only need a body, or even a very good model is good enough, for measurements, proportions etc. The rest is "just" classic car body work.
Body rust ? Weird gull-wing doors, wrong grill ? Bizarre windows ? FAKE lol
that is twelve minutes of my life I won't get back.
“Hey Theseus, they found your car!”
That blue car is truly hideous.
The blue "restoration", replica or whatever it is, is ridiculous, and an insult to the original. What a waste of money !
Maybe the parts for the blue car came from the 300 roadster that Ed mentioned was on the same lot in Cuba?
At the end people always steal these wrecks and pretend they bought it.
Interesting discussion about multiple elite cars being recreated from the same donor parts. If you have 51% of a dollar bill, it is worth the whole dollar. 49% is worthless. Doesn't exactly apply here but fun to think about. I do think it's important to save historic examples but would consider them recreations, with historical and monetary value determined by the quality and detail of the rebuild - more original DNA the better. In the General Lee replica world, some owners acquire small parts from actual screen-used Chargers and put them on replicas. Having a real screen-used gas pedal or push bar gives these clones some clout, but they are still clones. Great video!
Might want to check out actual videos from element extinguishers. It seems that if you don't snuff it out completely-- it's just going to relight when you remove the c02 spray from this. Doesn't seem that safe for a fuel or oil fire.
what about the 300SL Roadster!?! Same for both?
Restored
Thinking of trashed cars purchased for their story, I'd imagine there are some Toyota Hilux's in Iraq or Afghanistan that was hit by a A-10 Warthog and may still be running. It seems to me the iconic meeting of these 2 machines would make a great project.
How about the Mark-1 Plumbing 05 Ford F250?😉😄
Put Ed in the thumbnail and it will get way more clicks. I've been a vinwiki fan from the beginning and I know most people favor Ed's stories over the others so just give a hint that he's the one telling it
I don’t think the Cuban SL doesn’t need to be restored, I think it is beautiful that it is a hosh posh mix of multiple cars as it represents what car culture is about in Cuba.
Hmmm. Its clear that VIN plates were cut out of the Cuban cars and attached to a build elsewhere. The narrator really went round the houses trying to baffle himself. This was stated as long ago as the Clarkson film.
I would love to hear some stories of 'which is the most real'
Another brilliantly told story from Ed, though somewhat sad to see the state of that blue... thing.
The only question I have left is what about the car Clarkson spoke of and featured briefly in Motorworld? That was a different car - a roadster - and it looked in much better shape than the gullwing. I mean, it was still goosed, but not as goosed. Is that still out there, rotting away?
When I lived in Costa Rica in the mid 1970's, I saw a Mercedes sports car that was parked in Robert Vesco garage and was owned by him, I don't remember the model number, but it was fully gauged out and very unique. I think that would be a very popular car to find, maybe if you're interested in tracking down that car it would make for a interesting video.
If you can give an approximate or specific location that would be cool. Always interesting to search about for stuff like this.
@@bencalabro431 The car was last seen in San Jose Costa Rica, it must have been a 300sl. Robert Vesco fled from Costa Rica to Cuba in 1978 what he took with him I don't know. I was 15 when I lived there and went to school with his son and daughter, Vesco had bought the school for his kids to go to, beyond that I don't know what ever happened to the car, but to find a car that was owned by such a notorious person would be incredible.
When the car is that far gone call it an art piece and ship the vin separately.
only the frame section with the vin and some minor parts were smuggeld to Europe. Not the complete car in pieces. !!!
...who built 'restored' that blue car? Stevie Wonder? Steven Hawking? SpongeBob?
talking about historic cars, you recon any of the tree corvairs of the panamerican expedition is worth something?
Yall should have the patina collection on here they have crazy rare benzs
In every other garden there, there's a rusted out chassis that the owner wants $50,000 for because 'it's a classic and was once owned by Castro.'
Well, seen how the Cuban people were able to keep old cars running, I'd done most of the body restoration in Cuba..
What he has down there in Costa Rica is a worthless back yard cobbled up mess.
"Alloy car"? Steel is an alloy, always. Aluminum CAN BE an alloy but need not be.
You can tell Ed has been hanging out with Tavarish.
Mental note, never let a costarican restore ANYTHING
What a stupid comment.
Here in Costa Rica we have a few globally recognized vehicle restoration companies.
But then, how would you when you surely live in a small cocoon somewhere.
that sounds suspect too, who knows, maybe. but that car looks like a case of hot ass, not just the craftsmanship the color and EVERYTHING else about it
You should do a story on the rainbow-colored Lamborghini Diablo
Yeah I hear it’s hard to get screws in Cuba ….But wood screws
I remember this story, and when this SL gullwing came about.
Dude, you should get paid to tell stories, you are truly gifted at it! The gift of gab, and I mean that in the best of ways!
A little peak behind the curtain: this is Ed’s channel. He does get paid to tell stories. Heck, he gets paid when other people tell stories!
@@stephen3164 was sarcasm and irony, sorry that didn’t come through
Very nice story Mr Edd.....tks for sharing!
Never heard of ship of Thesesus complex before
@VINwiki what about a 380sl idk exactly the year early 80s I believe is it worth restoring it’s been sitting at this point about 16 years
Honestly it would be cool to find a matching officers mercedes and beetle
Thanks Ed.
Muchas Gracias Ed !!
***I don't know it still may be a good deal because wood screws have REALLY gone up in the last year***… lol
Wow, that was a story that went nowhere. HK Engineering did restore that car, case closed, lol!
Holy shit this guy is a fast talker...
It's what they do. Do not try and keep up, you cannot.
Love the vids. Great content.
Whats the blue car color code? Its sick
Ed is such a good storyteller.
Didn´t know Winwiki made custom commercials. 😉🤐
Photos from jeremy clarkson show a convertible, other photos a coupe?
My old landlord had 2 of them and had a tweaker working on them
Does he still own them?
You are doing good work. This history is important.
The up close camera appears to have a dead pixel on his head.
Great video! Thanks.
Well , that was a whole lot about nothing !