- Former F1 magnate Bernie Ecclestone is clearing out his collection of classic race cars
- That includes some 69 examples of some of the rarest F1 and Grand Prix cars of all time
- Dates and details of the auction have yet to be released
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Have you heard of the “death cleaning” trend? The idea is to declutter while you’re still alive so your loved ones aren’t left with the burden once you’ve passed. Well, when you’re 94-year-old multi-billionaire and former Formula One magnate Bernie Ecclestone, death cleaning amounts to liquidating 69 of the rarest Grand Prix and Formula One cars ever to cross the auction block.
Every single one of the cars in Ecclestone’s collection has been hidden from public view since the moment he first bought them, in some cases for more than 50 years. Highlights include Ferraris race-driven by Niki Lauda, Michael Schumacher, and Mike Hawthorn; and Brabhams piloted by Lauda, as well as Nelson Piquet and Carlos Pace. One of the cars is the famed one-off Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT46B “fan car,” which won its one and only outing at the Swedish Grand Prix in 1978 by more than 30 seconds.
There’s also the Vanwall VW10, which Stirling Moss steered to several wins as Vanwall clinched the first ever Formula One Constructors’ World Championship in 1958. Alberto Ascari’s Italian Grand Prix-winning Ferrari 375 F1 and the first Ferrari ever to beat Alfa Romeo, the Thin Wall Special, also grace the list.
“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,” Ecclestone said in a press release. “Having collected what are the best and most original Formula One cars dating back to the start of the sport, 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 has entrusted the auction of his historic car collection to Tom Hartley Jnr Ltd, one of the world’s most exclusive dealers of classic and historic sports cars and racing cars.
Ecclestone’s career in Formula One spans all the way back to the 1950s. He managed the careers of Jochen Rindt and Stewart Lewis-Evans before buying the Brabham team in 1972. By the late 1970s, he had pioneered the sport’s lucrative television rights agreements. He was CEO of the Formula One Constructors’ Association at its founding in 1978, and he became founder and CEO of Formula One Group, the sport’s promoter, in 1987.
While he was regularly controversial and often viewed as abrasive, he’s widely credited with catapulting Formula One onto the world stage and laying the groundwork for the monumental success the sport enjoys today. Much of this collection of cars was scooped directly out of F1 garages and into hiding by Ecclestone himself while he was working in the sport. That fact alone makes it extraordinary that these cars are returning to light. As of this writing, the timing and details of the auction have yet to be announced.
“After collecting and owning them for so long,” Ecclestone said, “I would like to know where they have gone and not leave them for my wife to deal with should I not be around.”
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