With a $400,000 Ferrari 296 GTB Assetto Fiorano measuring 4,565 mm long, 1,958 mm wide, just 1,187 mm tall, and weighing 3,680 pounds, this 28-year-old millionaire in Vienna casually turned a high-rise balcony into winter storage while his Porsche Panamera, BMW M2, and Audi RS3 waited below, a scene so surreal it feels like billionaire behavior drifting into everyday life.
When the garage runs out, the skyline becomes a showroom
Picture a quiet Floridsdorf high-rise in Vienna, the kind of place where winter means salt on the roads and a nervous glance at your paintwork. Residents reportedly looked up to see a construction crane swing a Rosso Ferrari 296 GTB onto a private balcony as if it were a piece of patio furniture. According to local reports, the owner is a 28-year-old auto-parts entrepreneur whose garage was already stuffed with a Porsche Panamera, BMW M2, and Audi RS3, leaving zero room for Maranello’s newest darling. The visual was pure cinema: a 3,680-pound supercar floating mid-air, terrace-bound, with phones filming from every angle. If social media needs a new symbol for “too much car, not enough space,” this was it.
The logistics alone read like a luxury-engineering flex. A 296 GTB is compact by supercar standards, but it is still a full-blooded mid-engined berlinetta being threaded through a residential courtyard and up to a private terrace. The crane operator had to keep the car level, avoid any yaw in the hoist, and place it precisely on a balcony that was built for lounge chairs, not lap times. Neighbors watched the Italian thoroughbred sway on straps, the way you’d watch a chandelier being installed, heart in mouth, hoping nothing clips the facade. You can almost hear the building’s structural engineer whispering a prayer about load distribution and point loads on a cantilevered slab. What could possibly go wrong when you turn your balcony into a fifth parking bay?
Of course, the motivation was less “stunt” and more “supercar survival.” The owner apparently first left the Ferrari in the courtyard, then grew uneasy at the thought of winter grime and exposure. He is said to have wanted it safe under cover and even planned a glass “terrace garage,” essentially a penthouse vitrine for a machine that deserves museum lighting. In that sense, the balcony wasn’t rebellion; it was a climate-controlled love letter to carbon fiber and hand-finished paint. Still, you have to admire the audacity: most people buy a car cover, he rents a crane. And in a city where parking is already a chess match, isn’t that a strangely logical endgame?
The Ferrari he airlifted isn’t just rare, it’s a rolling tech manifesto
Let’s talk about the star of this aerial ballet. The Ferrari 296 GTB Assetto Fiorano Edition is worth around $400,000 before options, and that price tag comes with serious substance. This plug-in hybrid pairs a 120-degree twin-turbo V6 with an electric motor for a combined 830 horsepower, backed by Ferrari’s latest control software and torque shaping. The Fiorano pack reportedly adds Multimatic dampers, carbon-fiber weight savings, and aero tuning that makes the car sharper and more track hungry. It is the sort of spec Ferrari people whisper about over espresso, because it’s rarer, lighter, and more focused than the standard GTB. In other words, he wasn’t hoisting “just another Ferrari.” He was lifting a technological thesis statement.
There’s also delicious irony in the numbers. The car’s compact footprint, 4,565 mm in length with a 2,600 mm wheelbase, makes it feel almost petite in a world of widening supercars, yet its performance is anything but small. Ferrari achieved that by packaging the turbos inside the V of the engine, lowering the center of gravity and tightening throttle response, the kind of engineering nerd-bait that justifies every extra dollar. This is a berlinetta that can glide silently in electric mode and then erupt into a full-fat sprint the moment you prod the Manettino. So when the owner worried about winter exposure, it wasn’t vanity; it was preservation of an expensive cocktail of batteries, aero, and craftsmanship. Would you leave a Swiss tourbillon in the snow? Didn’t think so.
And let’s not ignore the collector psychology. At 28, he has already assembled a lineup that covers the German performance spectrum: Panamera practicality, M2 hooliganism, RS3 traction rocket, then crowned it with an Italian hybrid halo. That suggests real taste with a dash of restlessness, the kind that makes you solve problems with spectacle. The 296 is also a connoisseur’s pick right now, praised for its high-rev character yet still controversial among old-school V8 loyalists, which only adds to its allure. So yes, he might be young, but his garage reads like a seasoned enthusiast’s mood board. The real question is, if this is his winter solution, what does summer look like?
The landlord called, and reality re-entered the chat
Naturally, the building management wasn’t going to let a balcony Ferrari become Vienna’s newest architectural feature. They reportedly contacted him quickly, citing safety, regulations, and the small matter of turning shared residential airspace into a private car vault. The owner admitted the car would have to come down, despite his plan to build a glass enclosure on the terrace. You can almost picture the exchange: one side referencing fire codes and structural limits, the other thinking about stone chips, condensation, and museum-grade display. In the ultra-wealthy world, friction often starts where imagination meets paperwork. And paperwork, sadly, tends to win.
There’s a juicy detail that feels very on-brand for modern money. He says he did ask about balcony parking when viewing the apartment, and the realtor apparently said it was fine. But we all know how that goes: agents nod politely at rich-guy hypotheticals, assuming they’re jokes or future-talk. When he took that “yes” literally and commissioned a crane, the punchline landed a little too hard. It’s a reminder that wealth buys access to toys, but not necessarily the ability to bend condo bylaws on a whim. Still, you have to respect the straight-faced commitment: he didn’t just flirt with the idea, he executed it. If nothing else, it’s the most expensive misunderstanding since someone thought “casual Friday” meant a Birkin.
What happens next is almost as interesting as the stunt itself. The Ferrari has reportedly been lowered and relocated, and the owner is now hunting for a compliant storage solution, perhaps a leased garage slot, perhaps a private warehouse, perhaps something even more theatrical. Given how viral the moment became, you wouldn’t be shocked if a luxury developer slid into his DMs offering a “car gallery penthouse” upgrade. Vienna may not be Monaco, but stunts like this nudge cities toward a new kind of high-rise amenity: not a gym, not a spa, but an actual sky-garage for the chronically over-collecting. Today it’s one young millionaire and a crane; tomorrow, will balconies be marketed as vertical car barns for the next generation of petrol-rich prodigies?