296 GTB

Make
Ferrari
Segment
Coupe

A cool $10 million doesn't buy you a whole lot of Ferrari. At least, not on a volume basis. This is a small car. However, on every other basis, $10 million gets you exactly enough old-school Ferrari racer goodness to make a 296 GTB jealous. The wild part is, someone will happily pay that money for this Ferrari 500 TRC Spider, and will then set it in their massive vault on marble flooring besides scores of other seven-figure classic cars.

Much as we all like to rip on the person that'll buy this and not drive it (at $10M, who would, honestly?), the story behind this car is a big part of why it's worth eight-figures.

Let's first clarify the numbers here. RM Sotheby's is auctioning the car, and $8-$10 million is what the auction house predicts the car could sell for. It could be more, or it could be less, but when you have this kind of cash, it doesn't really make a difference nut the bragging rights do. Back to the car. This is the last four-cylinder Ferrari ever made but the racing pedigree is what makes it.

The 500 TRC took class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Mille Miglia, the 12 Hours of Sebring, and the Nurburgring 1000 km. This chassis in particular was the second-last one Ferrari ever built.

The car was repainted blue after it was loaned by Ferrari to one Francois Picard, who then raced it at the Portuguese Grand Prix and later, Le Mans. It finished 5th in Portugal, DNF-ing at Le Mans after the water pump decided it simply could not pump one more fluid ounce of water around that four-pot engine.

Eventually, after some racing at the 12 Hours of Sebring and a new white and red paint job, that engine dropped a valve. Clearly tired of Italian sports car reliability, some maniac threw a Ford V8 in it, which no doubt made Enzo's blood boil. Clearly, someone had an intervention, and eventually put the old four-banger back in.

Of course, the car's history is rounded off by runs at numerous prestigious classics events, like the Mille Miglia rally and the later Amelia Island and Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance events for show. Honestly, we just want to see someone rip it around Sebring just one more time before it's stored away.