Vintage cars can often bring the owner a solid little fortune. For one seller in California, the sale of their 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta brought home the cash, to the tune of $38.1 million.
At that sale price, it became the most expensive car ever sold at auction, in the United States or internationally. The auction took place at Bonhams auction in the popular luxury resort town of Carmel, south of San Francisco.
The seller, Robert Brooks, Bonhams' chairman, said before the auction that he did think the car would surpass the 2013 sale price of a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196R Formula 1 car, which sold for $29.7 million.
"This is the peak of any Ferrari collection," Brooks said from London before the auction. "They tend to stay in owners' hands for a long period, and you don't see them coming up for sale that often."
But despite the hefty price tag, it didn't beat out last October's sale of a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO racer, which was a private-transaction sale reported at $52 million. Just down the road from Carmel, at Pebble Beach last year, a 1967 Ferrari 275 NART Spyder had set the previous record for a car bought at an American auction, selling for $27.5 million.
According to reports, the Ferrari auctioned was purchased in 1965 by Fabrizio Violati, whose family made its money through mineral bottle water and distribution as well as agriculture, Bonhams reports.
"The sound that car makes will make your hair stand on edge," Peter Sweeney, a classic car dealer in Gaylordsville, Conn., who sells Ferraris, said in a telephone interview. "It's a shriek. It's unlike any other sound you've ever heard before."
The car auction in Carmel will be continuing for a number of days, ending on Aug. 17, and millions of dollars in transactions are expected over the next few days.
The 1962 red two-seater was initially expected to go even higher at between $60 million and $75 million in the Bonhams auction, according to Michigan-based classic car database manager and insurer Hagerty Group LLC, Tech Times reports.
However, Bonhams was more on-target in its estimate of between $30-$40 million dollars. Henri Oreiller, a former French Olympic skiing champion, was killed behind the wheel of the car when he was racing with it in 1962.
The car was then rebuilt by the Ferrari factory and made its way into the hands of Violati, an amateur driver from Italy who possessed the vehicle for most of its existence.
