A rare, bright-red Ferrari 250 GTO that initially sold for $6,000 in 1964 could soon be auctioned for $60 million
- RM Sotheby's has put up a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO for auction for around $60 million.
- The car was first sold in 1964 for $6,000, per the WSJ. It was later sold for $500,000 in 1985.
In the 1980s, Ohio resident Jim Jaeger was on the hunt for "the ultimate Ferrari" and settled on a Ferrari 250 GTO.
After searching for a while, Jaeger, who is now 75, found the exact model he wanted was available for sale in Detroit. He paid approximately $500,000 for a 1962 model, which translates to about $1.4 million today.
That very car has been put up for auction at an asking price of above $60 million by Sotheby's car-auction arm, RM Sotheby's, per a Thursday report in The Wall Street Journal.
The rare car's sale history goes back a further two decades. Per the Journal, it was first sold for $6,000 in 1964 — or just under $60,000 in today's value. Ferrari only made about 34 such cars between 1962 to 1964.
"A once-in-a-generation opportunity to purchase the 1962 Ferrari 330 LM / 250 GTO—chassis 3765—after nearly four decades in private ownership," RM Sotheby's posted on Instagram on Friday.
The "only factory-owned Series I GTO to be raced by the Scuderia Ferrari" — the luxury carmaker's racing team — will be up for auction in New York on November 13 during Sotheby's marquee sales of Modern and Contemporary Art, per the Instagram post.
Car collectors love the GTO model Ferraris because of their championship history, Gord Duff, RM Sotheby's global head of auctions, told the Journal.
In fact, another 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO was auctioned by RM Sotheby's for more than $48 million back in 2018, CNBC reported. The car, which was auctioned in Monterey, California, set a world record at the time, per a CNN report.
That's not all. A 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO was reportedly bought by David MacNeil, the founder, and CEO of WeatherTech, for $70 million in 2018, per various media reports at the time. It is unclear if the car was sold at auction.
However, it's still miles below the current record for the most expensive car to be sold at auction. RM Sotheby's sold a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe for the equivalent price of $142 million last year.
Even so, these cars remain highly sought after. "People will definitely understand why we're asking the price we're asking for," Duff told the Journal.
Sotheby's did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Insider.