Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta sold for $38m, breaking auction record for car

A red 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta has set the world record for a car sold at auction, going for $38.1m.

Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta sold for $38m, breaking auction record for car
Former racing car, which was held in the same family for 49 years, breaks record set by 1954 Mercedes-Benz last year

A red 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta, which was once involved in a fatal accident, has set the world record for a car sold at auction, going for $38.1m (£22.8m)at a sale in California, according to Bonhams, the auction house.

The price, from a bidder whose identity was not disclosed, surpassed the $30m paid last year for a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 Formula One racing car, also sold by Bonhams.

"We've always maintained that we would exceed the current world record and that the car would bring between $30m and $40m and today the GTO did just that," said Robert Brooks, Bonhams' chairman, said.

Some reports before Thursday's auction predicted the car might fetch as much as $70m, but Bonhams said these were based purely on speculation.

The Ferrari was the highlight of Bonhams' annual Quail Lodge event on the Monterey peninsula in California.

Bonhams said the car had in effect been held by one family for 49 years from 1965 to 2014. It was one of just 39 models made and is regarded as one of the greatest Ferraris ever.

The car, sold from the Maranello Rosso collection and stamped with chassis number 3851 GT, was the 19th 250 GTO Berlinetta made by Ferrari and completed on 11 September 1962.

It was delivered to the leading French racing driver Jo Schlesser to be co-driven with the French ski champion Henri Oreiller in the 1962 Tour de France Automobile. Oreiller later crashed the car during a race at Montlhéry autodrome, south of Paris, and died of his injuries in hospital. A newspaper report at the time said the Ferrari careered off the track and flipped twice after a tyre burst.

The car was repaired by Ferrari in Italy and sold to Paolo Colombo in time for the start of the 1963 competition season.

In 1965, Fabrizio Violati, the scion of a wealthy Italian family, bought the car. "I saved the car from scrap and hid it from my parents. I only drove it at night so nobody would see me," Bonhams quoted him as saying.


For almost 40 more years, Violati drove the Ferrari in classic car and racing events, and it became one of the last 250 GTOs to compete regularly into the 2000s, until Violati's death in 2010, Bonhams said.