A Ferrari hidden beneath suburban dirt sounds like the setup to a bad movie—or an urban legend invented by car enthusiasts over drinks. But on February 7, 1978, Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies really did uncover a stolen Italian sports car buried in the backyard of a modest home on West 119th Street. Even stranger, the car was in surprisingly good condition.
For days, newspapers across the country chased theories ranging from organized crime to elaborate theft rings. The truth eventually proved no less bizarre: the buried Ferrari was allegedly tied to a failed insurance scam so strange it still sounds fictional decades later.
The Backyard Discovery That Shocked Los Angeles
The story began innocently enough when children playing in the muddy backyard of a home at 1137 W. 119th Street in Los Angeles noticed something unusual beneath the soil. According to reporting by Los Angeles Times staff writer Priscilla Painton, the children flagged down Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, telling Sgt. Joe Sabas and Sgt. Lenny Carroll they had discovered what felt like the roof of a car while digging.
The detectives initially treated the claim with understandable skepticism. Yet a few days later, on February 7, Sabas and Carroll returned with a skip-loader, shovels, and helpers to investigate. Beneath the dirt, wrapped in plastic and hidden just below the surface, sat something extraordinary: a green 1974 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS.
At roughly $18,000 new—a serious sum in the mid-1970s—the Dino represented one of Italy’s most desirable sports cars. Though sold under the Dino name rather than carrying Ferrari badges, the car honored Enzo Ferrari’s late son Alfredo “Dino” Ferrari and became famous for its flowing design and mid-mounted V6 engine. Apart from a small puncture above the taillight, deputies were stunned by how well preserved the buried sports car appeared to be. As Sabas famously joked to reporters:
“It’s not like planting cabbages.”
A Stolen Ferrari—or Something Stranger?
Investigators quickly traced ownership of the car to Rosendo Cruz of Alhambra, who had purchased the Dino in October 1974. Just two months later, on December 7, Cruz reported the Ferrari stolen to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division. The theft report remained active, but the case soon went cold. Cruz’s insurance company reimbursed him, and the car seemingly vanished.
The mystery deepened because nobody connected to the property where the Ferrari surfaced appeared to know anything about it. Neither the tenants living at the house nor its owners reportedly had any explanation for how a stolen exotic car ended up buried beneath the lawn without attracting neighborhood attention. Excavating and concealing a Ferrari is not exactly subtle work.
The bizarre discovery quickly became national news. Newspapers ran photographs of detectives standing beside the mud-covered Ferrari while readers speculated wildly. Mob hit? Hidden criminal loot? Botched smuggling scheme? For a brief period, the buried Dino became one of America’s strangest automotive mysteries.
The Truth Behind the Buried Ferrari
Years later, investigators and reporting would point toward a much less glamorous—but arguably more absurd—explanation. According to later accounts, the Dino had allegedly been part of an insurance fraud scheme. The story goes that thieves were hired to make the Ferrari disappear after its owner secured insurance coverage, with instructions to destroy or permanently dispose of the vehicle.
Instead, the criminals allegedly took a shortcut. Rather than dismantling or crushing the Ferrari, they buried it in a backyard and intended to return later. That return never happened.
Whether forgotten, abandoned, or interrupted by bad luck, the Dino sat underground for years until children stumbled upon one of the strangest automotive discoveries in American history. Remarkably, the Ferrari survived and was eventually restored, turning what could have been scrap into a lasting symbol of automotive weirdness.
Because sometimes the best car stories are not about speed, horsepower, or racing glory. Sometimes they begin with kids digging in the dirt and asking adults to explain why there is a Ferrari in the backyard.
