Steve McQueen's once-convertible Ferrari to auction for millions

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Some folks will pay a huge premium for vehicles once owned by notable celebrities, especially if those stars were gearheads. But when that car is a hyper-rare Ferrari and said to have been originally owned by Steve McQueen, you can expect shoot-the-moon pricing.

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That’s the deal with this 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 by Scaglietti, set to hit the RM Sotheby’s auction block later this summer. It is chassis number 10621, bought by McQueen to replace a convertible variant in which he was rear-ended at a stoplight in California. He took delivery in December 1967, driving it extensively whilst commuting to film projects such as Bullitt, before selling it in 1971.

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The car changed hands many times in the intervening years, going through repaints and picking up some damage before finally ending up in the hands of an owner who actually cut the roof off it in the early 1980s and turned it into a convertible. While this would be heresy today, it wasn’t totally unfathomable at the time. Since then, it made its way to Ferrari Classiche in Maranello, which treated it to a three-year restoration, taking it back to original specification as it was when McQueen took delivery.

Besides being one of the most beautiful Ferraris – some would argue one of most beautiful cars in general – this machine ushered in several company firsts for road cars, such as Ferrari’s first road-car transaxle drivetrain configuration and fully independent suspension. This particular car has a four-cam dry-sump version of the magnificent 3.3L V12, and is said to be one of approximately 330 ever built.

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Where will the bidding settle? It’s always tough to say with cars of this provenance. Auctions can be an emotional thing, particularly when a couple of moneyed one-per-centers get it in their heads that they simply must have the item before them.

That’s what happened the last time this car went under the auctioneer’s hammer, selling for US$10.175 million in 2014 (also at Monterey). At the time, talking heads placed the car’s value at around half that amount, meaning the McQueen connection was worth about US$5 million to someone on that particular day. This time around, the auction house is pegging its estimates for this car somewhere in the US$6-million range.

But if history is any indication, it only takes a couple of hard-headed and excited bidders to blow that number out of the water. We’ll find out in just a few months.