This car, Lot 357, sold for $12,985,000, including buyer’s premium, at RM Sotheby’s Monterey, CA, sale, on August 16, 2024.
Let’s open our discussion with the basic, unrelenting reality of today’s situation. This car sold for $13 million, but exactly 10 years ago the same car sold at a Monterey auction for $23 million (SCM# 244979). That is a $10 million (43%) hit for something that most collectors considered one of the gold standards of the hobby. What is happening? Is this a temporary glitch or is the collector market making a big adjustment? Serious stuff to consider, but first let’s talk about the cars.
Generational changes
It is useful to think of racing Ferraris as fitting into four generations. The first, from 1947 to 1954, were fundamentally the same as the road cars but often with bigger engines. They used a conventional layout with a live axle, and basically the same bodies as a street version.
The second generation started in late 1954, when Ferrari fundamentally separated the street-car and racing-car concepts to remain competitive with the new racers from Jaguar, Aston Martin and Mercedes. The frames remained oval-tube ladder construction in concept but moved toward a space frame with additional triangulation. Also, the transmission was moved to the back and became a transaxle, which then used a De Dion rear suspension. Most of the cars of this generation were 4-cylinder Monzas (3 liter) and Mondials (2 liter), but every year, Ferrari built a few special racers with big, fire-breathing V12 engines for factory team use in the championship events. Today’s 410 Sport fits in this group.
The third generation was built to meet the FIA rules instituted after the 1957 Mille Miglia crash that limited displacement to 3 liters. With vastly improved frames, suspension, brakes and handling, these were the 250 Testa Rossas and eventually 250 GTOs that have become the ultimate expression of collector desire. The fourth generation are the mid-engine racers of the 1960s and don’t concern us here.
The best and the rest
Our immediate topic is the Ferrari 410 Sport, but the discussion really applies to all the “big” Italian sports racers that were built between 1954 and 1958, including Ferrari’s 375 Plus, 410 Sport, 290 MM, 315 Sport and 335 Sport (412 MI). These are extremely rare. Between all of them, there were 19 cars built. If you want to include Maserati’s 450S, it gets to maybe 25. Though each is a distinct car, together they share basic similarities. Engines are sized between 3.5 and 5 liters and seriously overpower relatively primitive chassis, suspension and tires. Steering is heavy and imprecise, and drum brakes overheat after the first 45 minutes of serious use. Even in the day, they were considered “real man’s” cars — hot, deafening, uncomfortable and just short of terrifying when driven near the limit. Did I mention dangerous? Many drivers didn’t wear seat belts, preferring to be thrown out if things went seriously wrong.
As a group, however, they are fabulous cars. With exotic, limited-production, cost-no-object hand-built mechanicals wrapped in bespoke aluminum bodywork from the likes of Scaglietti and Pininfarina, and driven in international events by the best drivers, they are a serious car collector’s dream. They are not, however, the ultimate. That distinction belongs to the Testa Rossas and GTOs that followed.
This is because 250 TRs and GTOs are far better cars. They are actually fun to drive, with a wonderful balance of handling, brakes, power and usability that can make a pretty good driver look and feel like a champion. There is also the “club” aspect. If you want to belong, the only option is to find someone willing to part with theirs, cost be damned.
The 410 S and its sisters are rated a tier beneath, being desirable — but not quite as desirable — as the best. As such, they are more vulnerable to variations in the current market. Many of the serious collections with TRs have these cars as well, and if a decision is made to sell something, these go to market first. That means these second-generation racers are at least occasionally up for public sale, though the third-gen cars almost never are. The SCM Platinum Auction Database shows five pre-TR V12 racers at auction in the past decade, versus two GTOs and zero TRs.
Bought for half price
Over the past 15 years or so, the market for these cars has been very stable, basically between $20 and $25 million, with a couple of minor outliers. This brings us to the essential question: Does this new sale indicate a collapsing market or a temporary glitch? If I knew the answer, of course, I would be trading in these cars rather than writing about them, but I do have some observations.
The first is what I call the “Monopoly money” factor. Anyone paying millions for a collector car isn’t using the same money as the average family buying groceries. These are asset plays that constitute at best a small part of the buyer’s net worth. This means both that the buyer isn’t overly concerned about how much is paid to buy and that selling at a loss, if necessary, is more of an annoyance than a crisis. The decision to sell this car was probably strategic or practical rather than motivated by a need to generate cash.
The corollary is that in general, collectors who own these cars can and do choose whether and when to sell them. The current market is unquestionably soft, so this sale will most likely cause the other owners to simply sit on their cars until the market comes back. Save a major collapse in other asset categories that might force a reassessment, current owners don’t have much motivation to sell. Such a collapse seems unlikely anytime soon, so the longer-term prognosis for big, important Ferraris seems stable. Assuming the buyer has a five- or 10-year horizon, this car was very well bought. ♦
