A Unique Ferrari Potentially Worth $72 Million Will Soon Be Auctioned

It’s not often that you get see a unicorn, let alone have the opportunity to buy it, but one will be put up for auction in Florida on January 17. Not the cryptid, but something possibly even rarer: a Ferrari 250 GTO.Ferrari built just 36 of the grand touring cars from 1962 through 1964. They dominated the international sports car racing scene in those years, then faded into semi-retirement in the hands of gentleman racers, enthusiasts and collectors.The curvaceous coupes are powered by V12 engines and can reach speeds above 170 mph. The original price was $18,000, but in the late 1960s, a well-worn example could be purchased second-hand for as little as $2,500.They aged finer than any wine after that, however, and by the 1980s were worth $500,000 and just getting started. In 2023, one was auctioned for $52 million. That could be considered a bargain, because another changed hands through a private sale in 2018 for a reported $70 million, which remains the highest price ever paid for a car that wasn’t part of a charity auction.Both records will be in danger at the Mecum Auctions event at Kissimmee, Florida, when the only 250 GTO that left the factory with white paint crosses the block. The car is one of eight built with right-hand drive and was originally sold to British racing team owner John Coombs, who hired a roster of notable drivers, including Graham Hill, Richie Ginther, and Jack Sears to drive it.Sears purchased it from Coombs in 1970 and kept it until 1999, when he sold it for an undisclosed amount to the retired Microsoft chief executive, Jon Shirley, who still owns it today. Known among Ferrari aficionados as the Speciale, Mecum’s chief executive, Dave Magers, told me the 250 GTO is considered the holy grail of collector cars, and this one is “a unicorn amongst holy grails.”The 250 GTO is powered by a V12 engine and can reach speeds above 170 mph. Mecum AuctionsMecum hasn’t released a formal estimated sale price for the lot, but the Hagerty classic car insurance company values 250 GTOs up to $72 million, and Mr. Magers believes the sky is the limit for the Bianco Speciale.“It’s an auction, so you end up with two or three or four bidders, spirited bidders who decide they just have that car,” he said. “I would say that the range of value is probably somewhere between maybe $45 million and who knows what the top end could be.”What’s unusual about 250 GTO owners is that they don’t typically store the cars untouched behind security glass to preserve their value.“The 250 GTOs are not necessarily known as being garage queens,” Mr. Magers said. “Most of the people who own the 250 GTOs know they were thoroughbred race cars, and they do go to the track once in a while to test them out.”They are frequently entered in vintage racing events and are abused in a way that no $50 million Picasso or Rothko painting would be. Accidents sometimes happen, but repairs are made and the cars are always returned to pristine condition.The Bianco Speciale is one of eight 250 GTOs equipped with right-hand drive. Mecum Auctions“This is art that you can drive, art that you can track, art that you can have fun with,” Mr. Magers said.Pink Floyd’s drummer, Nick Mason, owns one that he famously puts in a special kind of peril by driving it on public roads, but he paid only $70,000 for it in 1978, so he has less to lose than the newer members of the 250 GTO owners’ club. As for who the next one might be, Mr. Magers said the group of potentials is small.“I would say we have had interest from roughly 10 people around the world, not just the U.S. Of the 10, it’s hard to say how many will register to bid, or actually bid on the vehicle, although I can say most of them have registered already.”Mecum requires bidders to submit financial verification and approves them to bid up to a certain amount to ensure that the sales can be confirmed, and the pot is bigger than ever this time around.“The total of all of the authorized bidding limits this year is about five times what it’s ever been for a Mecum Auction,” Mr. Magers said. “It’s in the billions.”

A Unique Ferrari Potentially Worth $72 Million Will Soon Be Auctioned

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