Nobody saw this coming — a Ferrari F50 just sold for more than some of the most exclusive hypercars of our time. The yellow 1996 example set a new auction record for the model: at Mecum's Monterey sale, it went for $14.575 million including buyer's premium. The winning hammer bid alone was $13.25 million. And that's after the record stood at just $12.21 million back in January. The F50 market pushed the bar up by more than $2 million in only a few months.
The secret isn't just rarity. Chassis number 239 of the 349 built stands out for its Giallo Modena color — only 31 F50s ever left the factory in that shade. The car was originally delivered to Switzerland, later landed in the US, and showed 7,253 km on the odometer at the time of sale. Mecum confirms the original body, engine, transmission, and chassis are all intact, backed by a Ferrari Classiche certificate.
What really pushes the price into a different league is completeness. The car still comes with three Schedoni travel bags, factory tools, a removable roof case, an emergency soft top, a lamp, and a rare pair of size 7.5 TOD'S Ferrari F50 shoes. According to Mecum, only 349 pairs were ever made — matching the car count — and after three decades, the shoes rarely stay with their F50. Though the auction house doesn't confirm whether this particular pair was ever worn.
The mechanicals remain entirely factory: a naturally aspirated 4.7-liter V12 and a six-speed manual gearbox. Ferrari quotes 520 hp, 471 Nm of torque, a 0-100 km/h time of 3.87 seconds, and a top speed of 325 km/h. American auction specs list 513 hp — the difference comes down to the measurement standard.
Coincidence? The same day, RM Sotheby's sold another F50 — a red car whose first owner was Mike Tyson. It went for $12.105 million. The yellow Mecum car ended up roughly $2.47 million more expensive — despite the far more famous name in the ownership history of Tyson's car.
It seems the days when collectors paid for an F50 purely for low mileage or a celebrity name on the paperwork are over. A rare factory color, originality, and even a preserved accessory set can now add millions of dollars to a car's price on their own.
Tarantas.news previously reported that Ferrari filed a trademark for the name LC67, covering cars and related goods. The name is linked to Luigi Chinetti and 1967, the year the ultra-rare NART Spider appeared, though there's still no official announcement of a new model.
