Melbourne Ferrari: Burwood’s Cameron Smith’s amazing tale of finding stolen car

A vintage car lover plans to take his stolen Ferrari for a spin around the block and crank The Rolling Stones after it was recovered with the help of social media.

Police check out Cameron Smith's recovered Ferrari at M-City Clayton, after it was stolen hours earlier in South Yarra. Picture: Supplied.

A Burwood man who had his vintage Ferrari nicked from a South Yarra carpark can’t wait to take it for another spin and blast some classic rock tunes after online car lovers helped him recover it within hours.

Cameron Smith, 46, was leaving work on June 21 when he noticed his mid-1970s Ferrari 400, valued at $150,000, missing from the carpark at 670 Chapel St at 5.30pm.

A devastated Mr Smith contacted police and his insurers, and then decided to take a punt and ask members of the Highball vintage car club’s WhatsApp group for help to find it.

Members shared news of the theft via social media, and within half an hour, Mr Smith’s friend was contacted by a man saying they’d seen the car.

The man, Tony, confirmed they’d seen the car in Clayton’s M-City carpark, and got his cousin who lived in an apartment at the complex to go down and mind it.

Mr Smith was then reunited with his “relatively undamaged” car at M-City around 9.30pm, and joined Tony’s cousin as they waited for police to arrive.

Cameron Smith's stolen Ferrari was found in Clayton thanks to the help of classic car lovers' appeals on social media. Picture: Supplied.

“It (the theft) might have been posted and reposted 50-60 times in space of half an hour, and as a direct result of that, it was recovered in an hour,” Mr Smith said.

“There’s only a few hundred of these cars in the world, and I thought it was gone for good … and these two guys I didn’t even know helped me find it,” he said.

The classic car lover, whose tale was first shared on 3AW’s rumour file, said he’d owned the car for 10 years and used it mainly as a weekend cruiser.

The car’s ignition was drilled out by the thief and the car was towed at 1am for police to investigate.

Mr Smith said he planned to install a tracking device and take the car for a celebratory spin around the block cranking Rolling Stones songs once police returned the car.

“I had it for so long, and I honestly thought I’d never see it again,” he said.

“The classic car community in Victoria is really strong, that’s why I reached out to them, and I knew there would be a lot of guys and girls that wanted to help.”