This $3 million Ferrari flip cost Steve Wynn his dealership

you mess up once you end up in the desert i think everybody's watched the movie casino i own a detail company in vegas since 1994. that's quite a long time and of course as you know vegas are driven by what gaming and entertainment and the casinos happen to be my clients that being said i have a lot of stories of different executives and people and management and dealers and pit bosses one day a guy comes into my shop in vegas he's driving a brand new ferrari it was a 360 stradali said hey i heard about you're the best guy on black cars yada yada and i said can ask where you're who are you and he says you don't know who i am and i said no i really don't he says i'm mark shore and i said great nice to meet you mark shore he said you still don't know who i am and i said really i really don't and i don't mean that with disrespect mr shore and he said well i am steve wynn's brother-in-law and i am an avid ferrari guy in fact i'm going to bring ferrari into las vegas we're going to buy a franchise we're going to team up with penske and we're going to put in a new hotel called the win but that being said i need the best of the best worker in my car she went to a body shop at the time who i was servicing it's called exotic car paintworks in vegas he's the go-to authorized ferrari of rolls bentley and so mark says i want you to work on this car says great he says so after a couple months of working on his cars he was a great client he was coming to me often um he said i i really would like to introduce you to to my you know brother-in-law and i said okay great can you come down to the mirage and i said yeah sure so i get down the mirage and walk in this crazy james bond looking offices and there's a secretary and i feel like miss penny's sitting there at the desk and she said would you like some coffee cappuccino some champagne and i'm thinking like i'm just a detailed guy what am i doing here and uh i walk in there's mr wind mr steve wynn and shakes my hand and says you know i've got a bunch of different cars mark speaks very highly of you my wife is very particular elaine at the time and uh we want you to start working not just on our personal cars but we want you to work on all the cars in fact i'm going to give you keys to my cars and you're going to be in charge of my personal fleet i have a property out in the middle of the desert called shadow creek i know if you ever heard of shadow creek it's a very uh famous resort which he basically built this oasis out in the middle with pine trees and forests in the middle of the deserts like 300 acres and i used to go out there and pick up the cars and i would go to the gate and there would be guys staying there with ar-15s they all knew me and i would pull up and it was the most surreal experience pulling into this resort where you felt like you were not in vegas you felt like you were i don't know where someone else where in the world but when i pulled in i had the clickers to the garage doors i had the keys to the cars i mean i'm like 20 some years old and i had all this trust but i also at the same time i worried because you don't mess with these guys right you mess up once you end up in the desert i think everybody's watched the movie casino the point is is that the relationship the vegas was a small town it was a good old boy town and what i started to learn was build relationships with the people who made this town and it'll make your business and i did it really quickly you know i built trust with these guys and i was operating out of a little shopping center that i got a special use permit to put a wash rack or canopy in if you watch my youtube video elaine his wife was into bentley's they had a black flying spur in fact i can if i can try to dig up the pictures i think i have the pictures with she had a vanity plate and it was the same letters and everybody knew that was elaine's car steve was not into cars he wasn't passionate i would say elaine was more passionate about cars so she had uh two uh black flying spurs for a couple years when we were working with the cars and then you know their house was next door to mark's house and then their garage sometimes would have steve's cars or vice versa but they probably between the two garages had between eight and ten cars parked there you know and they had some cars on the casino properties because they would sometimes stay in the casino properties then come home you know there were some very peculiar things they found in the cars and you know obviously due to privacy i can't share that but uh let's just say the mafia stories are real you know as far as like things that you see that you're not supposed to talk about but i always respected their cars mark was the one that talked steve into getting the ferraris he always told me he's like i think cars are cool but it's not my passion real estate is my passion building business is my passion and i mean i have very very brief conversations with him it wasn't like we sat there and talked for a long time but the thing about mr winn there's a couple stories one is i remember is in the late 90s early 2000s i don't know exactly when i got called down to his office and he pulls me in and says uh you're doing a great job really impressed in fact i have an opportunity for you and i said great and he said you're going to come work for me and i said work for you i don't want to work for anybody he said i'll give you a stock you'll be set for life you're going to run my transportation i said mr nguyen i really respect this opportunity but i got to tell you i can't do it i'm i think you understand you've been your own boss you know i i know your story and he said i support that but you never touch one of my cars again and he said have a good day mr light and i walked out and i said wow that was a great time to serve somebody of that level of business i respected him and i was a little sad walking out because i was like am i going to lose mark sure as a client unfortunately i didn't lose mark as a client um and when the ferrari dealership did open they did create their own detail department but when they had very particular customers they would call me on the phone and say hey we need your help at that time was rich cansky who was service manager who was source manager at the poorest dealership who i knew when i started the business and now he's the service manager for tobin ferrari but you know there's a lot of stories in vegas that was one if anybody's ever heard the story about the win and the ferrari franchise i can't say first hand i was there solid but i had very close friends and inside people that could tell me the facts of what really happened apparently mr winn had bought a lot ferrari and if anybody knows about the when you buy a la ferrari and brand new you you have an agreement with ferrari you will not resell the car i think it's for two years and mr wind hated the car and he wanted to get rid of it and he found a buyer and at that time uh ferrari came in to the win where the franchise was within the hotel and said you know we're gonna have a marketing meeting and then in the conversation came up mr winn what happened to your laferrari and he said i sold it and they said hey you cannot do that that's not what you do you have an agreement with us you're a franchise owner and it got into an argument and mr winn does not play uh it's his rules or you hit the road and he basically got into a quite heavy discussion and debate and turned into an argument where they said we're pulling your franchise and at this time mr winn was on 100 ownership of the dealership i mean penske and him were partners pesky calls them on the phone says you know what what's going on and he said they could take this ferrari and up there and you can go from there but and so anyway steve said i don't care in fact i escorted him off the property with my security and tell him don't ever come back on the property again and this is true he has worked him off ferrari management i mean steve like i said it's a very determined man when he wants something it is what he says it's non-negotiable so they got escorted off the property and immediately the franchise was up for sale and from what i understand they contacted the tobin family um who is the bentley rolls in austin martin and they said 100 percent we want it and they took over the franchise so that was kind of interesting story um i knew mr winn servicing him that he was great as long as it was on his terms and if it wasn't something he didn't want you weren't part of his life in business or personal that's it you're done and uh but you got to respect a guy like that i mean he made what vegas is today as a world destination a visionary and when somebody's like that and they have their focus you got to respect the fact that they get things done um and i think the italians understood that i mean everybody knows the ferrari and the ford gt story and it kind of reminds me of 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Channel: VINwiki

Views: 705,727

Rating: 4.8829198 out of 5

Keywords: VINwiki, Car Stories, Rich Light, Steve Wynn, Ferrari, dealership, franchise, The Wynn, Encore, car dealership, lawsuit, LaFerrari, hypercar, car flipping, las vegas, resort, mirage, bellagio, the strip, mark shore, elaine wynn, gloss it, gloss-it, detailing, challenge stradale

Id: mdFjlUQXBnQ

Length: 10min 6sec (606 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021