They say you can’t take your worldly possessions with you when you die,
but a Brazilian businessman is going to try. Following the example of
Egyptian pharaohs, Count Chiquinho Scarpa decided to bury his prizes
Bentley Continental in his back yard, so he can enjoy driving it in the
afterlife. 62-year-old Count Scarpa, a quirky millionaire from Sao
Paolo, Brazil, announced he has decided to do like the pharaohs and
entomb his $500,000 Bentley Continental Flying Spur in his back garden,
on Monday, via Facebook. The message came with a photo of the successful
businessman holding a cockatoo on one arm while resting the other on
his luxurious limousine. To assure those who doubted him that his claim
was sincere, the following day Scarpa posted another photo of him
holding a shovel next to a big hole in his garden, with the car parked
behind him, adding that he was going to put in the ground by the end of
the week. His bizarre messages got thousands of “likes”and “shares”on
Facebook, and eventually got the attention of the media. Count Scarpa
was invited on the “Agora É Tarde” TV show where he told host Danilo
Gentili he got the idea after watching a documentary on Sunday. ’I was
watching a documentary about the pharaohs of Egypt, very interesting.
They buried their entire fortune to have a comfortable life on “the other side”!’ he said.
On Wednesday, Scarpa uploaded yet another photo of him operating an
excavator in the back garden of his home to make the hole big enough for
the large Bentley. Yesterday, he announced he was going to bury the car
today at 11 a.m., Brazilian time, and added a photo of him polishing
its hood one last time. Will he really go through with it? We’ll just
have to wait and see, but I wouldn’t put it past him. During his
television appearance, the Brazilian count got some negative reaction
from people who accused him of wasting money instead of helping the
needy, and of using the stunt as a way of dodging taxes on the imported
vehicle. Scarpa denied the latter, claiming the car’s documents are in
order. Count Chiquinho Scarpa inherited the fancy title from
his Italian-born father Count Francisco Scarpa, who got the honor
from Pope Pius XII in 1949 for his charitable donations. The eccentric
businessman lives in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods of Sao
Paolo, on a property spanning over 14000 square meters. He made his
fortune in the brewery and mining industries and now runs an investment
company. Although he has been married twice, Scarpa has no children to
carry on the family name. He does however have a six-month rare
cockatoo, Filomena Leopoldina Sofia Scarpa, which he refers to as his “daughter”.
