The next auction record-breaker? Ferrari 250 GTO raced by Salvadori and Hill is set for sale

Were we betting types, we might be tempted to place a few shillings on the likelihood of this becoming the most expensive car to be sold at auction in 2026 – even if the sale is happening in the third week of January.

With rumours that another of the 36 250 GTOs created fetched as much as £55m in recent years, it’s not unrealistic to suggest that this example might well sell for more – not least since it’s the only white one ever to leave the factory.

And then there’s the remarkable provenance. It was bought new by Jaguar racing guru John Coombs, allegedly to compare against his race-prepared E-types.
In the first three years of its life, chassis 3279GT worked hard for its living at race meetings up and down the country, more often than not with a superstar driver of the era at the wheel.

Roy Salvadori took it to second place at Brands Hatch on its maiden outing on August 6, 1962, with Graham Hill also taking second at Goodwood in the car just 12 days later.

Mike Parkes, Richie Ginther and Jack Sears also competed in it – with Sears taking a class win at Brands that left him so in love with the ‘Bianco Speciale’ that he bought it, keeping it for 30 years.

Acquired by former Microsoft president Jon Shirley in 1999, Mecum says the car has been “maintained, repaired and re-finished – but never restored”. It even retains the tube that Coombs installed to bring cool air from the nose cone into the cockpit.

But even that might not have prevented him from passing out if he knew what his unique GTO could be worth today.

1962 Ferrari 250 GTO ‘Bianco Speciale’
On sale with Mecum, Florida, January 17. Estimate: undisclosed, likely £50m-plus. mecum.com