A bright red Ferrari with a storied history sold on Monday for $51.7 million, including buyer’s fees, making it the highest price ever sold at auction by the Italian automaker. Prices nevertheless fell below auction houses’ expectations, as the once-hot collectibles market begins to cool amid geopolitical uncertainty and rising interest rates.
RM Sotheby’s, the car dealership that Sotheby’s took control of in 2022, offered Scaglietti’s 1962 Ferrari 330LM/250 GTO for an undisclosed estimate of $60 million. Two bidders raised the price to $47 million, excluding auction house fees. (RM Sotheby’s declined to provide any information about the buyer.)
Sotheby’s advertised the car as a luxury item and sold it separately at a major fall art auction in New York. To drive home the point, auctioneer Oliver Barker, who is also chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, presided over the proceedings at Sotheby’s York Avenue headquarters, where the car featured a painting by contemporary art star Jonas Wood. It was parked in front.
The Ferrari 250 GTO was produced from 1962 to 1964 and only 36 examples remain in existence. The owner of this car will be a member of an exclusive club that includes his fashion designer Ralph Lauren and his Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.
RM Sotheby’s described the car as “one of a kind.” Although it looks almost identical to the 250 GTO, it was originally configured as a 330 LM, making it an even rarer car with a slightly larger engine. In late 1962 he was converted into a 250 GTO and is the only vehicle raced by his Ferrari, the Scuderia, the car manufacturer’s racing division. Ferrari sold the car to a Sicilian surgeon in 1964 for $6,000.
The car, known as chassis number 3765, is part of the current classic car auction set up by RM Sotheby’s last year when it sold a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhout Coupe for 135 million euros (currently about $144 million). It didn’t come close to the record. (The Ferrari 250 GTO he reportedly sold privately in 2016 for more than $70 million.)
Gord Duff, global head of auctions at RM Sotheby’s, said the $51.7 million price still compares with about $500,000 when it last sold in 1985, or the current price of $1.4 million. It is said that the price has increased considerably. A spokesperson for RM Sotheby’s confirmed the seller was Jim Yeager, an Ohio-based collector and co-founder of a radar detection business.
Geneva-based classic car dealer Simon Kidston said chassis number 3765’s unique history may have hurt more than it helped. “It’s a great car. Unfortunately, I don’t think everyone understands that,” he said. “In a market where appearance is so important and people like the security of belonging to a group of like-minded owners, anything that requires explanation becomes a little bit harder to sell.”