Picture the scene: a burgundy 1997 Ferrari 550 Maranello rolling back through the gates of Michael Jordan’s former Chicago mansion, 29 years almost to the day after he first ordered it, presumably while a crew of grown car dealers tried very hard not to cry. That is where this story ends up. Getting there took ten genuinely unhinged years, a dusty forum post, and a small army of private investigators — because for the better part of a quarter century, Jordan’s custom V12 had vanished into automotive witness protection, and the story of how it got found is the kind of car-world obsession that deserves its own docuseries.
The details here are drawn from the “We Are Curated” video documenting the find, produced by the dealership that tracked the car down.
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To understand why that reunion mattered, rewind to the beginning. Jordan took delivery of the 550 on May 29, 1997, roughly two weeks before he wrapped up that title. It wore a moody dark burgundy hue Ferrari calls Rosso Barchetta, and because His Airness is famously not built like the rest of us, the factory reworked the seat tracks to give him room to actually fit behind the V12. Then, in December 2002, he sold it through a dealership — and the thing promptly fell off the face of the earth. No sightings, no auction listings, nothing. For more than two decades, enthusiasts basically treated it like the automotive equivalent of a cryptid.
Enter John Temerian of the exotic dealership Curated, the guy behind the We Are Curated YouTube channel, who spent ten genuinely unhinged years chasing this ghost. His breakthrough came from a dusty old internet forum post that happened to contain the car’s unique serial number. He punched it into the manufacturer database and, sure enough, the Ferrari was somehow still registered under Jordan’s name. From there he did the only reasonable thing a sane person would do: hired private investigators to figure out which garage it was hiding in.
The trail led to the West Coast. Temerian’s crew cold-called dozens of California mechanics until one finally recognized that distinctive burgundy paint and connected them to the car’s extremely private owner. Temerian bought it on the spot for what’s described as a record-setting figure, then shipped it back to Chicago — fittingly, 29 years almost to the day after Jordan first ordered it.
And here’s the part that made the whole expensive manhunt worth it: when they popped the trunk, they found a stash of original paperwork, including the factory warranty booklet carrying Jordan’s actual handwritten signature. A verified autograph on the original documents is the sort of thing that sends a car’s value and mythology straight into the stratosphere. To cap it off, the crew rolled the V12 past the gates of Jordan’s former Chicago mansion, presumably while trying very hard not to cry.
If you’re wondering why a single 550 Maranello matters this much, it’s all about provenance. Celebrity ownership has a way of completely rewriting the collector-car math, and this one is a literal intersection of sports history and Italian design. That burgundy paint and the yellow Scuderia shields on the fenders aren’t just pretty — they reportedly inspired the look of the Air Jordan 13, which is a delightful bit of trivia for anyone who has ever laced up a pair.
The timing is also poetic. Jordan’s relationship with horsepower hasn’t faded one bit; these days he’s channeling it into professional stock car racing as a team owner. So while the rest of us were assuming his old Ferrari was scrapped or buried in some collector’s underground bunker, it turns out it was just patiently waiting for the most determined dealer alive to come find it. Score one for the car nerds.
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Where are the images of the Ferrari?? And where was it found, and why was it hidden for 24 years?? Very poor reporting.