1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa Prototype set to break auction record

Gooding and Co are offering for sale a 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa Prototype at their Pebble Beach auction, which is expected to break the world record for a car sale at auction.

Yes, much of the world is labouring under an economic cloud, but that doesn’t stop the world’s wealthy car collectors bidding for very special cars such as this 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa Prototype.

This particular 250 TR is something rather special – although they all are, of course – because it is one of the original prototypes for the Testa Rossa and is expected to beat the current world car auction record – around $30M for a 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic – when it appears at Pebble Beach next month.

Regular readers may remember that Max Girardo and team at R.M. Auctions managed to bring the hammer down on a 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa at the Ferrari Leggenda e Passione sale in Maranello in 2009. That particular Testa Rosso was a 1961 production model and fetched an impressive €9,020,000.

But this Testa Rosso is the very first prototype for the 250 TR (chassis number 0666 TR), giving it a far greater value to collectors and giving it a better than fighting chance of taking the auction record.

But auction records are not the whole story; many cars of this sort of value are never publicly seen for sale. A large number change hands privately between wealthy collectors, often with the help of a high-end broker. And prices for private deals have jumped a lot in the last year or two.

And unlike the early 1990s, where the classic car bubble burst in dramatic fashion, this inexorable rise in classic and collectible car values shows no sign of dissipating.