Four boys use $530,000 Ferrari as slide in China, parents offer only $735 to fix scratches

A Ferrari owner in Kunming, China, is demanding that four boys' parents pay the full 29,360 yuan (US$4,320) repair bill after the children used his supercar as a slide.

The owner, identified by Chinese media only as a man surnamed Zhang, said he had left the car in his designated private spot in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, and was away on a business trip on May 28 when the damage happened.

He bought the Ferrari as a personal vehicle for 3.6 million yuan ($530,000) and said it had never been scratched before.

Zhang found the damage when he returned and pulled the surveillance footage.

The video, which he later posted online, shows four young boys walking up to the car with a long bamboo pole, then climbing onto the roof and hood, sliding down and stamping on the panels for close to 20 minutes, according to Qianjiang Video.

The boys were around six or seven, the outlets reported.

The car was left with scratches across several panels and a cracked bumper, a detail Kunming Broadcasting and Television and other outlets confirmed from the footage.

Zhang reported the case, and the local Yingxiang police station in Kunming's Panlong district held two rounds of mediation.

The parents first offered a few hundred yuan, then raised it in steps to 5,000 yuan ($735), The Paper reported. They argued they could not tell the new scratches from the old ones.

Zhang said he is not trying to inflate the claim and wants only the real repair cost. He also said he had gone easy on the families.

A full repair at an authorized Ferrari dealership using original parts would have run close to 100,000 yuan ($14,700), and one garage's initial damage estimate alone came to 48,000 yuan ($7,070), according to the Xinmin Morning News.

Supercar paint and parts cost far more than those of an ordinary car, which is why even a scaled-back repair ran into the thousands of dollars.

Instead of the dealership, Zhang took the car to ordinary garages and used aftermarket and salvaged parts, producing two bills that together came to 29,360 yuan ($4,320). He said he chose the cheaper route because the culprits were children and because he is a father himself.

None of the parents brought their children to apologize in person, Zhang said, and they appeared only when summoned by police, the Xinmin Morning News reported.

With no agreement reached, Zhang has prepared the paperwork to sue, The Paper reported.

He has gathered the surveillance video, the police record and the repair receipts as evidence, and at one point went live online to ask the public to judge the case.

The parents have little legal ground to stand on, a lawyer told Qianjiang Video.

Chen Songtao of Zhejiang Fengguo Law Firm said that under Article 1188 of China's Civil Code, guardians are liable for harm caused by children who lack civil capacity, and can reduce that liability only by proving they fully met their duty to supervise.

A court would likely order the parents to pay the full reasonable repair cost, Chen said, and Zhang could seek enforcement if they refused.