Niki Lauda’s championship-winning Ferrari scores $6M at Monterey

This 1975 Ferrari 312T has seen the end of many wars. The Vietnam War ceased the year it was built; Ferrari’s nine-year fight for a Formula 1 world championship crescendoed into Lauda’s hard-fought win in 1975; and today, a bidding war for the car itself culminated in a gavel bang to the tune of $6M.

Our minimum estimate for this championship-winning, Lauda-driven Ferrari—and the first 312T ever offered at auction—was $6M, which proved to be right on the money. Gooding & Company handled the sale and, similarly, it estimated 312T chassis no. 022 would sell for between $6M–8M.

This particular 312T enjoyed a dignified march into the spotlight on the Monterey peninsula. Its stints with collectors have come at a pace certainly less frenetic than its racing career: Ferrari stored the car for several years before it spent seven with a UK collector and nearly 20 with a French connoisseur. Its American consignor owned the car for close to 14 years before releasing it onto the auction block at Car Week this year.

According to Gooding, chassis no. 022 closes the book on a significant chapter for its most recent consignor, who lavished upon Lauda’s car a restoration without a price limit. What the 312T needed, the 312T received.

Proudly wearing the same livery in which it saw the checkered flags at the ’75 French Grand Prix, when Lauda racked up the points that would catapult him ahead of the competition into his first-ever F1 world championship, 312T chassis no. 022 does justice to Lauda’s memory. The famed racer passed away earlier this year at the age of 70.

Form and function, present and past, coalesce in the periscope–style, red-and-green-pinstriped intake of this Ferrari. Chassis no. 022 represents much determination: of Ferrari, of Lauda, and of the collectors and restorers who have kept its history alive.