Ferrari 250 LM That Won Le Mans Sells for $36.3M

This has been quite the week in the auction world. On Saturday, a 1915 Cyclone became both the most expensive motorcycle ever sold at public auction, as well as the first one to bring over $1M. The same day, across the Atlantic in Stuttgart, a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 streamliner sold for €51,155,000 ($53M) and became the most expensive Grand Prix car ever sold at auction, as well as the second-most expensive car of any kind sold publicly. Then, on Wednesday in Paris, the Ferrari 250 LM that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1965 sold for €34,880,000 ($36.3M), making it the most expensive Le Mans winner ever sold at auction, as well as the most expensive Ferrari sold publicly that isn’t a GTO.

The 250 LM was an unlikely overall winner at the world’s most famous sports car race. Not because it wasn’t fast or capable, but because its maker intended for it to compete in the GT class with production-based cars rather than the prototypes that duked it out for top honors. Enzo Ferrari had begrudgingly embraced mid-engine designs in his F1 and prototype sports cars, and he realized that the front-engined 250 GT–series that dominated GT-class racing for years probably wouldn’t be able to keep it up. He needed a replacement. The prototype 250 P, designed under chief engineer Carlo Chiti, was the first mid-engine car to win Le Mans (in 1963) and would be a solid basis for this new GT car. If Enzo could convince the rule-makers at the FIA to homologate it, that is.

The FIA required 100 cars to be built to qualify for GT racing, but Ferrari was a low-volume company at the time, and a hundred cars was a lot. Enzo had already convinced the FIA that the 250 GTO (just 36 built) was really just a rebodied version of the old 250 SWB (it wasn’t), so he tried the same trick with the new 250 LM. He even insisted on keeping the “250” name even though the engine had grown from 3.0 to 3.3 liters (which, in Ferrari speak, meant the car should have been called the 275 LM). The FIA didn’t fall for it this time, correctly concluding that this car, with its new bodywork, different chassis, and larger engine plopped in the opposite end was, in fact, all-new.

Ferrari ultimately built just 32 examples, and the 250 LM therefore had to race in the prototype class. Despite being a bit down on power and a bit up on weight compared to the competition, it distinguished itself for roadholding and reliability. Private teams won races and hill climbs with their 250 LMs, and the model’s crowning achievement came at Le Mans in 1965 with this car—chassis 5893.

The sixth 250 LM built, 5893 went to Le Mans under the banner of Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (N.A.R.T.), along with four other privately entered 250 LMs. Ferrari itself arrived with its latest 330 and 365 P2 prototypes, and the Ford contingent was represented by a slew of new GT40s and Cobra Daytona coupes. Wearing number 21, chassis 5893 started from 11th place, with the “Kansas City Flash,” Masten Gregory, and up-and-coming Austrian Jochen Rindt on driving duty.

The car held its position in the first few hours of the race, before dropping to 13th place, but then all the latest and greatest Ford and Ferrari machinery up ahead started to peter out. By the 11th hour, 5893 was in third place, and by the 18th hour the N.A.R.T. Ferrari was firmly second behind another 250 LM. After that car went in for an extended pit stop, 5893 took the lead and kept it. Another 250 LM finished second, and another in sixth. A 275 GTB finished third, making for a Ferrari 1-2-3. Gregory and Rindt had done it (reserve driver Ed Hugus claimed years later to have driven a stint, but this has never been conclusively proven). It was Ferrari’s sixth straight win at Le Mans, which to that point was the longest winning streak for a single manufacturer at the French endurance classic. But this unexpected Le Mans win for Ferrari would also be its last, at least until the marque’s triumphant return at the 2023 race.

The next season, N.A.R.T. entered 5983 at the very first 24 Hours of Daytona, where Bob Bondurant and Rindt finished in ninth. Luigi Chinetti Motors also displayed it at the 1967 New York auto show, and the following year N.A.R.T. brought it back to compete at Daytona, with Masten Gregory and David Piper on driving duty. It qualified in eighth but retired after 101 laps. It was back at Le Mans in September 1968, but retired there, too. Remarkably—as by this time 5983 was an old veteran of a race car—it appeared yet again at Le Mans, in 1969, for an eighth-place overall finish, and at Daytona in 1970 for a seventh-place finish overall. This would be 5893’s—and the 250 LM’s—last World Championship event. To recap, this car raced at Le Mans three times and at Daytona three times.

Later in 1970, Chinetti sold the car, now finally in retirement from top-level competition, to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. Like the Mercedes-Benz W196 Grand Prix car auctioned off earlier this week, the Ferrari remained a part of the museum’s collection for decades, and it was only sold this week to benefit its collection and restoration efforts. The museum had previously brought the car out on occasion for shows like Pebble Beach and Amelia Island (where it won Best in Show/Concours de Sport in 2023).

Other 250 LMs have sold at auction before, but this is the most significant of the bunch and was deservedly the most expensive. RM Sotheby’s presale estimate for it was somewhere “in excess of €25M,” and bidding hung around that number for a while until a heated final few minutes. At a final price of $36.3M (including fees but not taxes), it’s the sixth most expensive car ever sold at auction, behind the $142M Mercedes-Benz 300SLR Uhlenhaut coupe sold in 2023, the W196 sold a few days ago, and three examples of the LM’s iconic front-engined predecessor—the 250 GTO.