A 1956 Ferrari touring racer will be sold in Paris next week when it is expected to bring in a minimum of EUR 13 million or around $15.2 million.
The 250 GT LWB Berlinetta ‘Tour de France’ by Scaglietti is being sold by Sotheby’s RM who say it has an unparalleled history.
The car is described as: “The most legendary and historically significant of all Ferrari competition cars.”
It won the 1956 Tour de France Auto race, one of the oldest race series in the car world, with roots back to 1899.
At the wheel was Marquis Alfonso de Portago, who Sotheby’s RM describe as, “an Olympic-level athlete and international playboy.”
Alfonso de Portago with the car during the Tour de France race that he won in it. Portago died, aged 28, in a race in 1957. Image by Archives Maurice Louche courtesy RM Sotheby’s.
Typically of the Formula 1 racers of his era, Portago was an aristocrat. Tragically typically he was killed in an accident while racing in the controversial Mille Miglia race in 1957. The race took place on open, public roads. Portago’s crash – he was driving a Ferrari 335 S – killed a total of 11 people, including five watching children, and was significant in the ending of the race.
The car is incredibly rare. A berlinetta-style car (a two door coupe type), it is the seventh of only nine of these made by Ferrari with a body by Scaglietti, the Monza-based company’s neighbouring and favoured coach builder.
It is the only Ferrari to win every race it entered in its period.
After Portago, the car was in distinguished private collections, but has been in storage for the past 10 years.
The most valuable racing car ever sold was a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe that realised $142 million in 2022. Last year another Mercedes – a Grand Prix winning 1954 Streamliner – was sold for just under $54 million.
The most valuable Ferrari racer is a 1962 250 GTO that realised nearly $52 million in 2023.
This car, with its history, undoubted aesthetic appeal and record could well be underpriced on its estimate. Additionally, Sotheby’s say the car is largely original.
