Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone to sell extensive car collection
69 Historic Grand Prix and Formula 1 Cars
Tom Hartley Jr has been chosen to sell F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone’s vast collection of historic Grand Prix and Formula 1 cars, potentially the most impressive of all time and set to be worth ‘hundreds of millions’.
The 69 car collection spans around 70 years of motorsport, from a 1931 Bugatti Type 54S to Michael Schumacher’s 2002 World Championship winning Ferrari.
A life in Formula 1
The 94 year old British businessman was essentially in charge of Formula 1 as the commercial rights holder and is credited as one of the people who turned the sport into the powerhouse it is today. He departed the sport in 2017 after agreeing a sale to Liberty Media for around $8 billion.
Ecclestone’s involvement in Formula 1 began in the 1950s with Connaught, where he managed drivers Stuart Lewis-Evans and Jochen Rindt. He then went on to buy and run the Brabham team, with Carlos Reutemann, Carlos Pace and Niki Lauda winning races. It was Nelson Piquet’s start that shone brightest, winning World Championship titles in 1981 and 1983.
In 1974, he co-founded the Formula One Constructor’s Association (FOCA), which he combined with his role at Brabham. The role entailed negotiating legal issues with the FIA and culminated in Ecclestone securing the right for the FOCA to negotiate television contracts for races.
This led to the formation of the Formula One Group in 1987 which continued to control and develop commercial rights until 2017.
Famous Ferraris
Among the collection are several famous Ferraris, including the famous Thin Wall Special which became the first Ferrari to ever beat an Alfa Romeo and the 1951 Ferrari 375 driven by Alberto Ascari to victory at the Italian Grand Prix.
There is also the Dino 246, which campaigned for three seasons and culminated in Mike Hawthorn winning the 1958 World Championship. The car was subsequently donated to the Henry Ford Museum by Ferrari, before finding its way into the hands of Ecclestone.
The 1975 Ferrari 312T, driven by Niki Lauda and teammate Clay Regazzoni, became the first to win the Constructors’ Championship for the Prancing Horse since 1962. The car was bought by Ecclestone for around £5 million in 2019 and is one of only three Lauda championship winning Ferraris in existence.
Widely regarded as one of the most successful F1 cars of all time is Michael Schumacher’s 2002 championship-winning F2002. The German drove the car to his fifth World Championship and, along with teammate Rubens Barrichello, easily clinched the 2002 constructors' title with as many points as all other teams put together.
Brabham and the one-off race winner
Through his time as head of the Brabham F1 team, Ecclestone acquired several notable cars from that period, many of which haven’t been seen for decades.
Under his leadership, the team secured 22 wins, 24 pole positions, 25 fastest laps and two World Championships. Brabham also became the first to introduce in-race fuelling and fit carbon brakes to its cars. Ecclestone also saw promise in a young Gordon Murray, giving him a job in the team alongside other names like Charlie Whiting and Herbie Blash.
One of Gordon Murray’s designs was the Brabham BT46 ‘fan car’, a one-off car driven by Niki Lauda to victory at the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp by more than half a minute.
“Because Bernie has retained ownership of the Brabhams since they were new, and many of those cars have not been seen for decades, people can forget quite how special a team Brabham was,” said Tom Hartley Jr.
“Look after them as precious works of art”
Bernie Ecclestone: “I have been collecting these cars for more than 50 years, and I have only ever bought the best of any example. Whilst many other collectors over the years have opted for sports cars, my passion has always been for Grand Prix and Formula 1 cars.
“A Grand Prix and in particular a Formula 1 car is far more important than any road car or other form of race car, as it is the pinnacle of the sport, and all the cars I have bought over the years have fantastic race histories and are rare works of art.
“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. After collecting and owning them for so long, I would like to know where they have gone and not leave them for my wife to deal with should I not be around.
“Having collected what are the best and most original Formula 1 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.”
“The most important car collection in the world”
Operating from a private showroom in Leicestershire, Tom Hartley Jr will use 25 years of experience in the sales game to sell the collection to his worldwide list of clients.
Tom Hartley Jr: “This is quite simply the most important race car collection in the world. There has never been and probably never will be a collection like it ever offered for sale again.
“I feel very privileged that Bernie has entrusted the sale of his cars to my Tom Hartley Jnr business. Formula 1 cars are cars that I know particularly well, they are not just cars that I have a great personal interest in, but we at Tom Hartley Jnr actively buy and sell them, too. However, there has never been a collection like this one offered for sale, and no one in the world has a race car collection that comes close to Bernie’s. This a great opportunity for a discerning collector to acquire cars that have never before been offered for sale, and it would be great to see them back on the track again.
“All of the cars on the Formula 1 grid today look the same. If you stripped them of their liveries, you’d struggle to know which one was a Williams and which was a Ferrari. But when you look at some of the Grand Prix cars from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, they’d very much be at home in The Museum of Modern Art.”
“This collection is the history of Formula 1.”
words: Mike Booth
pictures: Tom Hartley Jr