Former Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone puts car collection up for sale
Sign up now: Get the biggest sports news in your inbox
Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One grand prix car collection will be sold through classic and historic sports and race car dealer Tom Hartley Jr.
PHOTO: REUTERS
SUFFOLK – Former Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone is selling off what has been billed as the greatest collection of grand prix cars ever assembled.
The 69 cars date from the start of the F1 championship in 1950 and include examples raced by champions Alberto Ascari, Mike Hawthorn, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Michael Schumacher.
A highlight is the one-off and controversial Brabham BT46B “fan car”, named after the huge downforce-generating fan, that Lauda raced to victory in Sweden in 1978 before it was withdrawn.
“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,” said Ecclestone, 94, in a statement.
“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.”
The collection will be sold through classic and historic sports and race car dealer Tom Hartley Jr, rather than at auction.
Hartley said it was the most important collection of race cars in the world.
“The highlight... has to be the Ferraris. Bernie has assembled a collection of Ferrari Formula One cars that today would be near-impossible to repeat. This collection is the history of Formula One,” he added.
The Ferraris include the 375F1 that Ascari drove to victory in the 1951 Italian Grand Prix, Hawthorn’s title-winning 1958 car and Schumacher’s 2002 car.
Ecclestone, who once owned the late three-time champion Jack Brabham’s now-defunct Brabham team and who left the helm of F1 in 2017 when Liberty Media took over the sport, said he had bought only the best.
“I have now decided to move them on to new homes that will treat them as I have and look after them as precious works of art.”
Ecclestone tried his hand at racing in the 1950s and then managed drivers including Austrian Jochen Rindt, who became the first and only driver to win the championship posthumously in 1970.
The Briton became a billionaire after taking over the commercial side of F1 in the 1980s.
In 2023, Ecclestone was spared a prison sentence after pleading guilty in a London court to misleading Britain’s tax authority about overseas assets worth more than £400 million (S$683.8 million).
Ecclestone agreed a civil settlement with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, under which he had to pay £652.6 million covering tax, interest and penalties for 18 tax years between 1994 and 2022.
In 2014, he paid US$100 million (S$134.6 million) to the German authorities to end a high-profile bribery trial, which was linked to the sale of F1’s rights in 2006 and 2007. REUTERS
