Equipment
5474/485hp, 6-speed manual transaxle, Speedline wheels, Scuderia shields, Becker CD stereo, luggage set, books, Ferrari Classiche Red Book.
Condition
Represented as number 166 out of the original 448 built. Delivered new to Virginia. The urge to drive a bright red Ferrari droptop must be strong for any car enthusiast who still has a heartbeat, but someone resisted it here, because the car shows just 468 miles—roughly a one-way drive from Boston to D.C.—in 22 years.
Market commentary
You know what they say: When the top goes down, the price goes up. Even when said top is ugly, hard to put up, and pretty much useless. But you don’t buy any car dubbed a Barchetta (Italian for “little boat”) with rain on the brain. This week, a rare Ferrari 550 Barchetta sold for $720,000. That’s 43 percent above its condition #1 (concours) value in the Hagerty Price Guide. It’s also 2.5 times as much as a 550 Maranello—the one with the roof—in similar condition would typically sell for. It’s not quite a record price, but it’s close, and it highlights how irregular values for these low-production Italians have been over the years. We saw this very car in Scottsdale five years ago, in essentially the same unused condition, where it sold for $522,500. This week’s result doesn’t necessarily come from a constant upward trajectory for these modern classics, though. The world-record auction price for a 550 Barchetta is $726,000, but that sale was from way back in 2015 during a general surge in classic Ferrari values. At Amelia Island a few weeks ago, that same record-setting car from 2015 sold for just $665K, despite its odometer showing only 26 more miles than it did eight years ago. Following that value spike in the mid-2010s, Barchettas plateaued and then dipped significantly, only to rebound during the 2020–22 pandemic boom. They dropped again in 2023, a full 11 percent with the latest update of the Hagerty Price Guide. Sale prices have been a bit all over the map, from $300K for one in late 2020, to $700K for one last July, and $425K for another one this past January. It’s possible the market hasn’t figured out these Ferraris yet. While a 448-unit run is ultra-rare in Camaro country, it’s not all that low for Ferraris. That may partly explain why, with few exceptions, 550 Barchettas have struggled to exceed their inflation-adjusted original list price. However, given their ingredients (front-mounted naturally aspirated V-12, manual gearbox, open top, limited production, and Ferrari badges), these are a bit like a 21st century version of the Daytona Spider, and that’s a $2M car. It’s not inconceivable, then, that 550 Barchettas will be seven-figure Ferraris in the not-too-distant future. This one just put them a bit closer.