A new challenger has emerged for the title of most expensive car in history, in the form of this 1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti, which is set to be auctioned in Paris this afternoon.
Current estimates predict it will sell for around $34.7m (£24m), but it's not out of the question that it could eclipse the $38m (£26.3m) paid for a Ferrari 250 GTO at auction in 2014 – currently the highest price ever paid for a car at auction.
According to Auto Express, the 335 has "a real chance at taking the crown" as it's not uncommon for cars as rare as this to sell vastly over their estimates.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
If the hammer does fall at $34.7m, it will be the second most expensive car sold at auction, taking its place on a list dominated by Ferraris from the same period.
Bumping up the price is the car's motorsport pedigree – it competed at Le Mans and the Mille Miglia. Drivers including Phil Hill, Mike Hawthorn and Sir Stirling Moss have taken 335s into competition with some success.
Autoblog says this particular one started out life as a 315 S, before Ferrari exchanged its 3.8-litre V12 for a larger 4.1 litre unit, generating nearly 400bhp. With this engine, it led the 1957 Le Mans 24 hours and set a new lap record, although mechanical problems meant it finished in fifth place.
In 1970, it was sold to noted Ferrari collector Pierre Bardinon – a man Enzo Ferrari once said collected so many cars, he did the job of cataloguing classic Ferraris for him.
The potentially record-breaking Ferrari should be "the absolute nuts", Top Gear says, but also highlight several other interesting vehicles expected to fetch big money at the Artcurial Motorcars Retromobile auction today.
The car goes up for action just weeks after a 1956 Ferrari 290 MM driven by Juan Manuel Fangio was sold for $28 million (£18.5 million) at an auction in New York, becoming the third most expensive car ever.
-
Air strikes in the Caribbean: Trump’s murky narco-warTalking Point Drug cartels ‘don’t follow Marquess of Queensberry Rules’, but US military air strikes on speedboats rely on strained interpretation of ‘invasion’
-
A tour of Sri Lanka’s beautiful northThe Week Recommends ‘Less frenetic’ than the south, this region is full of beautiful wildlife, historical sites and resorts
-
Crossword: September 14, 2025The Week's daily crossword puzzle
-
Ferrari Purosangue review: what the car critics sayfeature There is ‘nothing else’ on the market quite like Ferrari’s first four-seat, four-door model
-
Sport on TV guide: Christmas 2022 and New Year listingsSpeed Read Enjoy a feast of sporting action with football, darts, rugby union, racing, NFL and NBA
-
House of the Dragon: what to expect from the Game of Thrones prequelSpeed Read Ten-part series, set 200 years before GoT, will show the incestuous decline of Targaryen
-
One in 20 young Americans identify as trans or non-binarySpeed Read New research suggests that 44% of US adults know someone who is transgender
-
The Turner Prize 2022: a ‘vintage’ shortlist?Speed Read All four artists look towards ‘growth, revival and reinvention’ in their work
-
What’s on TV this Christmas? The best holiday televisionSpeed Read From films and documentaries to musicals for all the family
-
Coco vision: up close to Chanel opticalsSpeed Read Parisian luxury house adds opticals to digital offering
-
Abba returns: how the Swedish supergroup and their ‘Abba-tars’ are taking a chance on a reunionSpeed Read From next May, digital avatars of the foursome will be performing concerts in east London
