All ears? A rare Ferrari F50 once owned by boxing champion Mike Tyson is heading to auction, and it could eclipse current records.
A low-mileage 1996 Ferrari F50 previously owned by former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is tipped to set new auction records for the V12 supercar.
Listed by auction house Gooding & Company, the Rosso Corsa red Ferrari F50 is estimated to sell for a hammer price between $US4.5 million to $US5.5 million (between $6 million and $7.8 million in Australian currency) at next weekend’s Pebble Beach auctions in California.
Built by Ferrari’s Maranello factory in February 1996, this chassis is the 73rd of 349 examples of the F50 to roll off the production line, and one of 55 built for the US market.
According to the listing, this particular Ferrari F50 was first delivered to Beverly Hills Sports Cars in Los Angeles, where it was purchased by car broker Nadir Amirv before it was sold to Mike Tyson.
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It is not clear whether Tyson had purchased the Ferrari F50 before or after his infamous fight with Evander Holyfield, in which ‘Iron Mike’ bit a portion of his opponent’s ear off.
Tyson owned the supercar for a number of years before it was sold in 2001 to Kevin Marcus, the co-founder of early search engine website InfoSpace.
Numerous collectors have owned the Ferrari F50 since Marcus sold it a handful of years later, however the odometer currently reads 6193 miles (9966 km).
The listing states the Ferrari F50 was given a comprehensive service within the past six months, consisting of a new clutch, tyres, air-conditioning system and refurbished Alcantara door cards – all of which set the current owner back roughly $US75,000 ($AU105,000).
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While the Ferrari F50 may not have received the praise of its F40 predecessor when it was launched in 1995, it is now appreciated as a modern classic.
The F50 was one of the first road-going production cars to use a carbon-fibre monocoque, tipping the scales at just 1223kg fully laden.
Its 4.7-litre V12 engine was based on the 3.5-litre unit which Ferrari used to power its 1990 and 1991 Formula One cars, although in the F50 it only produced 382kW and 471Nm – all of which was sent to the 355mm-wide rear tyres via a six-speed manual gearbox.
Values of the F1-derived V12 supercar have been increasing in recent years, as the F50’s auction record was reset earlier this year.
In March 2022, a 1996 Ferrari F50 sold for £4,161,600 ($AU6.03 million) at the Artcurial Rétromobile Sale in Paris.
If this particular example sells at the lower end of Gooding & Company’s estimates, it could set a new Ferrari F50 auction record.