In the spring of 2025, the VKontakte was encouraged by posts about the entrepreneurial Taganrozhitz, who was able to earn by restoring a rare car and then selling it. We checked the reliability of these messages.
May 14 Public "Brain explosion"On VKontakte (5.5 million views at the time of writing this analysis) shared the following story:“ A resident of Taganrog bought an old car in the USA for $ 9,000, invested $ 6,000 in its repair and then sold it for $ 80,000. This is the mamkin businessman! ” A series of six photos was attached to the post: it is assumed that for five of them the car is captured before the repair, and after the sixth - after. Authors of public "How is it possible?"(265,000 views) called this Taganrozhitz a genius, and"Forgotten garage | Forgotten Garage"(10,000) specified that the pictures show the Plymouth Barracuda car. Similar posts Out in set others communities in "VKontakte".
With the help of a reverse search for viral images from Google, it was “verified” that the initially five photos in which the car are presented in poor condition appeared on Instagram*. March 25, 2025 of them Published In this social network, the blogger Thomas Mordsk, accompanying his post with the following signature:
“Yeah, there is [engine] hemi! Yesterday we found this pearl on Facebook* Marketplace and went to the place with a trailer and cash! Unfortunately, we were not able to conclude a deal, but we took this “barracuda” of the 68th year with a boost! At one time, this thing must have just made a splash! ”
Mordsk is a rather popular American autoblogger who is repairing old cars. “Most of them are the Rukhlyad that others left to rot,” the description of his YouTube channel Mortske Repair (208,000 subscribers). Mordsk has a second channel with additional content (MORE MORTSKE Repair, 54,000 subscribers), where he is March 29 Published A video about his unsuccessful attempt to buy Plymouth Barracuda of 1968 - the same car that is depicted in viral pictures.
It becomes known from the video that a car that was not used for about 15 years was sold for $ 14,500 in the city of Rosmount, Minnesota. According to the seller, referred to by the blogger, other potential buyers were from different cities of the United States, including St. Claud (Minnesota), Boston (Massachusetts) and Jolinois (Illinois), as well as from Sweden. Taganrog and Russia were not mentioned. Mordsk Explainedthat he refused to buy due to the unsatisfactory condition of the car, but paid $ 200 for shooting. In addition, the car was installed not the engine that was declared in the announcement, but during registration there could be difficulties due to problems with documents. By the time of publication, the video announcement on the sale of Plymouth has already been closed, and the buyer and final price are unknown.
As for the viral photo in which Plymouth is allegedly captured after the repair, it was “verified” with the help of the Tinye service that the photo initially appeared on Ebay back in 2014. The ad itself is already inaccessible, but we found news About the sale of this car on the website of the Street Muscle Internet magazine. On March 4, 2014, they reported that the seller was ready to give the 1968 Barracuda with the Hemi engine for $ 50,000. At the same time, it was clarified that he had invested more than $ 80,000 and could not sell it four times.
The earliest publication with a viral story about the taganrog resident, which was tracked “verified”, appeared on VKontakte in the public “Ob” (165,000 views). There is a post Placed April 11, 2025. Previously, this community was mentioned in our refutations as the source of other fictional stories. For example, they talked about Kamchatsky there Mushroom pickest, found in the forest a jug with gold coins, and about teenager From Krasnodar, who discovered millennial shells with large black pearls on the beach. At the same time in Description The public unambiguously does not claim the satirical nature of the posts: “The author’s entertainment blog with original content and unique style, founded more than 15 years ago.”
Thus, the story of a man from Taganrog, who for $ 9,000 bought a rare Plymouth Barracuda in poor condition in the USA, and after the repair, which cost another $ 6,000, sold the car for $ 80,000. Its source is a public in VKontakte, which has repeatedly published similar in structure about finds that enriched the inhabitants of different Russian regions.
*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities and symbolism in Russia are prohibited.
Photo on the cover: @MortSke_Repair (Instagram)
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