Will the last factory Ferrari to win Le Mans break £28million?

The 275 P, which was driven to 24 Hours victory in ’64 by Jean Guichet and Nino Vaccarella, is one of the remaining cars in the now-depleted collection of the late Pierre Bardinon, the Frenchman generally acknowledged as the greatest Ferrari collector ever. 

The last car to sell from the Bardinon Collection was the 1957 Ferrari 335 S Scaglietti which sold at auction in Paris in 2016 for €32 million (£24.7m at the time), an auction record in 2016. Artcurial sold that car and will be selling the 275 P at its Retromobile sale in Paris on February 9^th. There’s no official guide price but unofficially all eyes will be on the €32m made by the 335S – a Ferrari that, unlike the 275, never actually won at Le Mans…

In 2012, when Bardinon died, it is thought only around 20 Ferraris remained in the collection but that their collective worth then could have been as much as €200m. Bardinon’s love for the Scuderia meant that at its peak his collection numbered as many as 70 of the rarest and most successful Ferrari competition cars ever built, including many Le Mans winners. He started buying the cars in the 1960s, building a race track at his Mas du Clos estate in rural Limousin on which to exercise them with his friends. 

A Ferrari first took outright honours at Le Mans in 1948 and then for the last time in 1965. But it was the works Scuderia Ferrari team cars that won seven races between 1954 and 1964 that really set the prancing horse’s seal on the event (and spurred on Ford to take them on with the GT40). 

The open-cockpit, mid-engined, V12 275 P (chassis 0816) that took the win in ’64 was driven by Guichet and Vaccarella over a distance of 4695 km at an average speed of 196.6 km/h. It was the last time the Ferrari factory team won Le Mans, the prototype 275 P’s evolutionary model for privateers – the 250 LM – that clinched victory the following year being run in the colours of the North American Racing Team (NART).

All that, plus the fact that the 275 P hasn’t been seen in public since it joined the Bardinon Collection at Mas du Clos, means this is one of the most significant of Ferrari sales yet, and likely Ferrari auction highlight of 2018.

“This Ferrari 275 P represents the ultimate and the truly exceptional,” says Artcurial’s managing director Matthieu Lamoure.

“The car has reached the summit in sports car racing worldwide. To look at this automotive masterpiece is to see the best and most prestigious racing provenance. It radiates the DNA of success.”

Question is: are we about to see a new Ferrari record set?

Photography courtesy of Artcurial Motorcars