Seriously messed up leader of the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has been crushing gorgeous, innocent automobiles for dumb reasons for a while now. And his latest victim is a Ferrari 360 Spider, a true gem of an automobile. Just watch this Italian stallion get turned into scrap metal.
The government of the Philippines squished a Ferrari 360 Spider on Tuesday in Manila. Apparently, the car had been “misdeclared as auto parts” and then destroyed as a “warning to smugglers,” The Philippine Star reports. The news site writes that the car had arrived in May and was estimated to be worth 7 million Phillipine pesos (about $137,000) “before being crushed, which significantly reduced its value.” (I include that last quote because it’s hilarious that a news outlet thinks it necessary to say that crushing a Ferrari reduces its value).
The publication also posted some awesome but also heart breaking photos of the light blue Ferrari 360 Spider meeting its demise. Check them out:
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Philippines-based News Company GMA News has video of the sports car’s final moments. Prepare to weep a bit:
United Arab Emirates-based newspaper Gulf News Asia describes in a bit further detail what’s going on here, saying that, when the vehicle entered the country in May, it was deliberately missing some parts so that it could apparently avoid taxes associated with importing automobiles. From the story:
The Ferrari soft-top convertible with an estimated price of P7 million (Dh502,993), was brought into the country in May with some of its parts detached in an apparent bid to skirt payment of taxes.
“The vehicle was wrongly declared as auto parts, to avoid payment of the right taxes,” Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero said after a ceremony marking the destruction of seized smuggled items at the customs compound at the Port of Manila on Tuesday.
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Importing used cars into the Philippines is highly regulated and highly taxed, in part, to help bolster the local auto industry. Still, I don’t think anyone—whether it’s the Bureau of Customs in the Philippines or the U.S. Customs and Border Protection—should be destroying perfectly good automobiles, especially if they’re as magnificent as the Ferrari 360.
Because this aluminum-bodied V8 sports car did nothing wrong. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it did everything right.
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