because in Dubai there are huge cemeteries of abandoned supercars. Video – Corriere.it

The famous Eduardo Galeano will excuse us if we paraphrase – in the sense of a car – one of his best sayings in ‘The wonders and miseries of the game of football’: “There is nothing as empty as an empty field”. Well, if you look at the thousands of abandoned cars in Dubai (here is a video), one might think that «There is nothing sadder than the graveyard of a luxury car». The phenomenon is unusual but reaching impressive levels: there is talk of 2-3 thousand models ending up in isolated areas outside Dubai. This kind of endless expansion can also be seen in China but with a difference: in the East, they are full of electric cars from failed car sharing companies while in the Emirate the level is very high.

Standard of living

Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bentley, Rolls Royce and so on: it seems strange but they represent many cars that ended up in the ‘graveyard’. His video has gone viral as the protagonist Ferrari Enzo worth around 1.2 million euros, abandoned and in very poor condition. The explanation – except in very rare cases – does not lie in the boredom of the rich people of the area: for many years it was thought that they were so spoiled that they gave away their old car wherever they could buy a brand new one. The truth lies in the old concept of biting off more than you can chew, which puts many expats – especially the British – in a difficult situation who move to Dubai and cannot maintain the required standard of living in the long term. But there are also local entrepreneurs (especially real estate developers) in bad situations or tax evaders.

Auctions

The problem is that in Dubai, failure to pay a debt (even just a mortgage, loan, monthly rent) is considered a criminal offense. There are no laws governing bankruptcy, you cannot ask for legal protection of any kind: it is better to leave the car – where it happens to be under the house or in the desert – and disappear for a while. But those with Dubai passports change more easily when foreigners return to their country of origin. The alternative is jail. For reference, owners of impounded vehicles have fifteen days to recover their vehicle, pay the debt and return it before it is auctioned. But almost all cars go under the hammer for a few dollars on Emiratesauction.com. Is it worth it? As always, it depends on the condition of the car and any repairs, besides we must not forget the cost of shipping (for the 2015 Maserati Quattroporte, for example, it costs 9 thousand euros) and re-registration in Italy. Without considering that it often takes months to get it to your home. So, be careful.