Rare 1959 Ferrari 250 GTB LWB California Spider Competizione Headed to Auction
With just a few weeks left in 2024, Broad Arrow Auctions is looking ahead to the 2025 auction season. It’s difficult to predict what the year will bring in terms of sales, but we can already tell one of the highlights will be a rare, well-documented 1959 Ferrari 250 GTB LWB California Spider Competizione scheduled to cross the block during the Amelia Auction in March.
Assigned chassis number 1451 GT, the Scaglietti-bodied roadster was built on June 15, 1959, and lined up on the starting grid of the 24 Hours of Le Mans just a few days later. It took fifth place overall (first went to an Aston Martin DBR1 co-driven by Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby) and third in the GT Class, which were great results considering we’re talking about a road car. This wasn’t an ordinary road car, however.
Broad Arrow notes that this 250 GT is the second of eight aluminum-bodied, competition-spec cars. It features a 262-horsepower V-12 with a 9.6:1 compression ratio, an external oil cooler, a 35-gallon fuel tank, and a track-specific suspension that’s firmer than the standard car’s, among other equipment.
After the race, chassis number 1451 GT made its way back to the Ferrari factory where it was finished in the shade of silver that it wears today. It was then sent to the United States, where it continued racing, and it was displayed at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance numerous times starting in the 1980s.
This 250 GT ticks a lot of the right boxes. Its history is well documented since the beginning: having gone through the hands of several private owners, it was repainted in Rosso Corsa when it was restored for the first time in the early 1980s. Ferrari Classiche certified the car in 2008, and a second restoration performed by Wayne Obry’s Motion Products and finished in 2011 returned it to its original Le Mans configuration.
Broad Arrow Auctions predicts that the 250 GT will sell for anywhere between $10 million and $14 million. For context, RM Sotheby’s sold this exact car for about $18 million in 2017, and classic Ferrari models haven’t gotten any less desirable since. If it finds a new home, it will become the most valuable car that Broad Arrow Auctions has ever auctioned.
