Formula 1’s former head honcho Bernie Ecclestone has put his 69-strong collection of Grand Prix race cars up for sale.
The 94 year-old businessman ran Formula 1 from 1987 to 2017, having previously bought into the sport with Brabham in 1972. Over three decades in charge, Ecclestone built the sport up to become a multi-billion dollar business and didn’t do too badly out of it himself, amassing a fortune estimated to be in excess of $2 billion.
Ecclestone spent a sizeable chunk of that on collecting racing cars dating back to before the beginning of the Formula 1 World Championship. Among the highlights of Ecclestone’s garage are a pre-war Auto Union V16, the 1958 Vanwall driven by Stirling Moss which won the first-ever F1 Constructors’ World Championship, and the Brabham BT46B Fan Car, designed by Gordon Murray when Ecclestone was the team boss.
There’s also a strong stable of Ferraris including Alberto Ascari’s 375, Mike Hawthorn’s Dino and World Championship-winning cars of Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher.
“I have been collecting these cars for more than 50 years, and I have only ever bought the best of any example,” says Ecclestone. “I love all of my cars, but the time has come for me to start thinking about what will happen to them should I no longer be here, and that is why I have decided to sell them. After collecting and owning them for so long, I would like to know where they have gone, and not leave them for my wife to deal with should I not be around.”
“This is quite simply the most important race car collection in the world,” says Tom Hartley Jnr who has been tasked with selling the F1 supremo’s selection. “There has never been and probably never will be a collection like it ever offered for sale again.”
