£45million Ferrari 250 GTO set to become world's most expensive car... again

That will require a cheque of the order of £45 million!  The car, inevitably, is a Ferrari 250 GTO, and a rather special one at that. It is the second GTO ever made (of 36) and the first to go racing. It is Phil Hill’s GTO from the Sebring 12 Hours of ’62 (where he came second with Olivier Gendebien) and a podium car from Le Mans the same year.

The ’62 GTO continued racing, mostly in the US, through to the mid ‘60s, all without major mishap. It then changed hands a few times: for $2,500 in 1968, $5,400 in 1969, and for $13,000 in 1975 to Stephen Griswold who, after completely restoring the car and repainting it red, sold it for $125,000 – one three-hundredth-and-sixtieth of what it is up for now. How would you feel?

You may remember the car from the Goodwood Revival in 1999 when it was driven by our own Emanuele Pirro. By now it was back in NART blue metallic with a white stripe in honour of its American provenance: in ’62 it was used by the factory as a test car at Monza before being sold to Luigi Chinetti of the North American Racing Team.

Now it’s in the UK with Talacrest in Ascot with a For Sale sign above it – most unusually since changes of GTO ownership invariably happen very much behind closed doors.

As Talacrest’s John Collins says: “This is not a car at the end of a telephone line, this is a car you can verify exists. This is the real deal. You can drive it, race it, have fun…and take it on Ferrari’s 70th anniversary tour in 2017.”

Hear hear to all that – anything so long as it’s not stashed away in a bank vault.

Because of the secrecy over GTO transactions it’s difficult to be absolutely sure what the highest price is, but with an asking price of £45m it is certainly right up there. The documented best auction price for a GTO was $38,115,000 achieved by Bonhams at its Monterey Car Week auction in 2014.

John Collins adds: “We have sold eight GTOs in the past at Talacrest. In 1994 we had 3909GT in stock at the showroom – as we have 3387 today. Everyone at the time thought that £2.5m was a huge amount of money to spend on old car – how times change!”

For potential owners and tyre-kickers alike, the video above on the car’s history is worth a look. It is hosted by the man who restored it, Steve Griswold, and answers the question that many have asked over the years: just how much of this very special Ferrari did he replace during its restoration?

Photography courtesy of Talacrest.