Sandra West Was Buried In Her 1964 Ferrari 250 GT

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Sandra West.

Sandra West with her prized car. A 1964 Ferrari 250 GT.

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Blog Created: 9-5-2022

Last Updated: 8-23-2023

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Find A Grave // Drive: https://www.drive.com.au/news/can-you-take-it-with-you-20100729-10xw8/

Sandra Ilene Hara West

BIRTH: 2 Jan 1939, New Jersey, USA

DEATH: 10 Mar 1977 (aged 38), Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, USA

BURIAL: Alamo Masonic Cemetery, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, USA

Laid to rest in her nightgown behind the wheel of her light-blue 1964 Ferrari 250GT. The heiress, widow of Texas oil millionaire, Ike West, was a wealthy 37 year old Beverly Hills socialite, and left most of her $3 million estate to her brother, provided he made sure she was buried in her favorite lace nightgown and inside her Ferrari, with the seat slanted comfortably. The Ferrari was surrounded with concrete so no one would be tempted to dig it up and drive away.

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Editor's Note: This story originally ran in 2017.

“Around the time you’re having your second cup of morning coffee, Sandra Ilene West is going to be buried in her expensive Ferrari sports car.”

That’s what the San Antonio Express-News reported in 1977, when the Texas socialite’s lingerie-clad corpse was laid to rest in her favorite, powder blue 1964 Ferrari 330 America at a near East Side cemetery.

On May 19, 1977, West – a Beverly Hills socialite and widow of Texas oil tycoon Ike West – and her $20,000 car were positioned in a concrete box, placed in a grave at the Alamo Masonic Cemetery and covered with cement to thwart vandals.

And while many gathered for the burial, none were mourning family or friends.

Instead, around 300 spectators and reporters looked on to witness a crane navigate around tombstones and place the box into a grave measuring 19 feet long, 10 feet wide and 9 feet deep, according to an original Express-News report from May 19, 1977.

“Of course, this is the most unusual funeral I’ve ever handled,” funeral director Porter Loring told reporters at the time. “It’s been a tough battle trying to keep this as unsensational as possible.”

The socialite, who died of a prescription drug overdose on March 10, requested in a 1972 will that she be buried “next to my husband in my lace nightgown by Porter Loring (Mortuary) and in my Ferrari with the seat slanted comfortably,” the report stated.

At the time of her death, she lived among the rich and famous in Beverly Hills and was worth $5 million that was inherited from her husband after he died in 1968.

Pending a court order from a Los Angles judge, her body was temporarily entombed in a mausoleum in San Antonio’s Sunset Memorial Park, according to archives.

The 1964 Ferrari arrived by train on May 18, and was watched over by two armed guards at a private location while workers positioned West’s corpse.

Back in California, the widow left behind a $500,000 stamp collection, $500,000 worth of jewelry, a solid-gold fishing reel, two additional Ferraris and a Stutz Blackhawk, according to an April 13, 1977, Express-News report.

The Ferraris were sold to auction that summer, as well as a 4.97-carat and a 6.98-carat ring, which sold for $305,000 and $110,000, respectively, according to a report from June 15, 1977.

It is unclear which Ferrari model West was buried in.

West’s wealth was left to her brother-in-law, Sol West III, per the 1972 will, though an unknown, additional will drafted in 1976 resulted in legal battles that made national headlines months after her death.

The latter will would have left millions to San Antonio lawyer and longtime family friend Fred Semaan, though in a “fit of temper,” he marked the pages with “void” after West “routed him out of bed six times one night ‘to talk about pure and absolute nothing,” a March 23, 1977, report states.

With a history of prescription drug abuse, West’s erratic behavior rang throughout court rooms as a Los Angeles judge ordered an inquest.

That summer, her physician, Dr. Raymond Weston, testified that she acted “bizarre” and would describe her as “a psychotic with a tendency toward paranoia and hallucination,” a July 19, 1977 report states.

And now, almost 40 years later, the grassy patch that covers the “bizarre” woman and her cherished Ferrari is visited by thousands of history buffs and sightseers each year. The cemetery is a stop on a number of tours, including the San Antonio Neighborhood Tours, Eastside Cemeteries Tour and Go! Historic SA Guided Running and Walking Tour.

Other prominent residents of the Alamo Masonic Cemetery include Clara Driscoll, who helped preserve The Alamo in the 1900s; John Lang Sinclair, composer of the “The Eyes of Texas,” the school song for the University of Texas; and Robert H.H. Hugman, designer of the River Walk.

A car much like the one that Sandra West was buried in.

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Can you take it with you?

Tony Davis, 00:0030 July 2010

That may depend on your belief system but some people have tried. Among them were Texas oil heiress Sandra Ilene West, a resident of California, who specified in her will that she be buried “in my lace nightgown … in my Ferrari, with the seat slanted co

That may depend on your belief system but some people have tried. Among them were Texas oil heiress Sandra Ilene West, a resident of California, who specified in her will that she be buried "in my lace nightgown ... in my Ferrari, with the seat slanted comfortably". Her wish was granted perhaps earlier than she planned, as West died at the age of 37.

The year was 1977 and Time magazine reported: "Like Egypt's King Tutankhamen, who had a couple of golden chariots buried near him when he died in 1352BC, [West] is journeying to the hereafter in style."

Time reported that West's Ferrari was a powder-blue 1964 330 America. Most other reports said West specified that it should be her favourite Ferrari, a far more valuable 250 GT.

Proof of which car is really down there might be hard to, ahem, dig up. Although a large crowd and television cameras attended, the casket-on-wheels was packed inside a huge grey crate.

After the crate was craned into the rather large open plot, it was covered with a hefty slab of cement to deter any particularly determined and ghoulish car thieves.

The plain grave site, at a San Antonio cemetery in Texas, gives no clue to the extent of what's below. West, however, is not the only person to request their hearse doesn't stop next to the grave.

Most of us wouldn't be seen dead in a 1973 Pontiac Catalina but Lonnie Holloway had no such inhibitions. Last year the 90-year-old North Carolinian went subterranean in his monstrous Yank tank, his hunting rifles in the boot and a $100 note in his top pocket.

Eleven years earlier, one Rose Martin, 84, of Rhode Island, took up four burial plots when she and her white Chevrolet Corvair were deposited six feet (and four wheels) under.

A Corvair? But aren't they unsafe?

More modest was the automotive send-off for India's Narayanswami in 2007. He chose to decompose in the Morris Minor he bought new in 1958. Villagers in Sivapuram decorated the car before lowering it and its owner into their final resting place. The Ga tribe in Ghana has a thing for brightly coloured fantasy coffins. At least one person has been buried in a small-scale wooden S-Class, another in a large-scale bottle of Coca-Cola. Caskets made to look like mobile phones are popular, too.

A British coffin maker, Vic Fearn & Co, is trying to put the fun back into funeral with a range of "Crazy Caskets". They include guitars, train carriages, boats, skateboards and cars.

One of its most intricate jobs is a wooden 1920s Rolls-Royce Phantom, with room for one.

Most car buffs leave their favourite machines above ground, though sometimes with a twist.

Britain's Steve Marsh had always been obsessed with BMWs. When he died of heart failure last year, his family organised for a unique headstone: a full-size M3 convertible rendered from a single piece of granite.

Weighing a tonne and costing about £50,000 ($86,000), including the shipping from China, where it was built, the monumental Bimmer was unveiled this year. The response was mixed but to hell with the critics - you only die once! Unless you are a Buddhist, of course, in which case you can perhaps simply bequeath your favourite motor to your next incarnation.

A recent trend - at least among certain groups - is a public viewing in your favourite vehicle. In 2003, Alexander Bernard Harris, a hip-hop mogul from Miami, died of natural causes (for a hip-hop mogul from Miami). He was shot in the head by up to four gunmen while in a barber shop having his hair styled.

Harris's body was displayed at the funeral home sitting behind the wheel of his yellow Lamborghini Murcielago.

Even creepier, a shooting victim in Puerto Rico recently attended his own wake, propped up on the seat of his Honda 600 motorcycle.

The 22-year-old was said to be riding the bike "all the way to heaven".

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Sandra With Car ~

Newspaper ~

Sandra West ~

Digging Massive Grave ~

Funeral ~

Grave ~

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