And the most valuable car ever offered at auction is…

Well here it is, the car to eclipse the current record for the most valuable car ever sold at auction, set back in 2014. At Monterey in August, RM Sotheby’s will offer the “highly original, numbers-matching 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO”, chassis 3413 GT, that claims two Targa Florio first-in-classes in its racing provenance, along with nine out of ten race wins to scoop the 1962 Italian National GT Championship.

A holy grail of a car with a holy grail of an estimate – $45 million, no less. In fact more, as the Canadian auction house is hoping to soar past that record-setting sum. They might well do it, too, as this GTO (that began life as a Series I but was fitted by the factory with a Series II body in 1964) is among the very best of the best. How many historic racing cars of any sort, let alone the legendary GTO, can boast a total of 20 races in period – in none of which was it involved in an accident, and in none of which did it fail to finish? Rare indeed. It was a winner then and – we suspect – it will be a winner now.

First owner, and the man who took that Italian National GT title, was Edoardo Lualdi-Gabardi, a privateer highly favoured by Ferrari. The two subsequent owners, who each took a class win in the Targa Florio, were Gianni Bulgari, who headed up the eponymous jewellery company from the 1960s to the 1980s, and Corrado Ferlaino. Today, chassis 3413 retains its original engine, gearbox, and rear axle – plus that factory-fitted Series II body.

We can only begin to imagine the tension in the RM auction room come August, when this Lot is rolled out in front of the appreciative audience of potential new owners.

Image: Copyright and courtesy of The Klemantaski Collection