The 10 Most Expensive Cars Ever Sold At Auction

Someone just paid $40 million for a brand-new Ferrari. Not a Ferrari that won Le Mans. Not a Ferrari once driven by Juan Manuel Fangio or Michael Schumacher. Not a 60-year-old 250 GTO that spent decades appreciating in some billionaire's climate-controlled garage. A brand-new Ferrari.

On Saturday night at Monterey Car Week, billionaire investor Herbert "Herbie" Wertheim paid $40 million for the Ferrari Luce "Chassis 0," the first production example of Ferrari's first fully electric vehicle. The sale obliterated the record for the most expensive new car ever sold at auction.

And here's the crazy part: $40 million isn't even enough to crack the five most expensive cars ever sold at auction. In fact, another car sold at Monterey this same weekend for even more. A 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe fetched $42.905 million, setting a new record for an American car at auction and pushing Wertheim's brand-new Ferrari down to #6 on the all-time list.

Meanwhile, a 1996 McLaren F1 GTR sold for $34.655 million, establishing a record for a McLaren and a British-built car. That car doesn't even make the top 10.

The collector-car market has changed considerably since we last ranked the biggest auction results in 2023, so it's time for an update. Here are the 10 most expensive cars ever sold at public auction:

#10: 1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti – $35.7 Million

This Ferrari 335 Sport sold for roughly $35.7 million at Artcurial's Rétromobile auction in Paris in February 2016. Only four 335 Sports were built, and this example had the kind of racing history that makes collectors lose their minds.

It competed at Sebring, the Mille Miglia, and Le Mans, where Mike Hawthorn used it to become the first driver to average more than 200 kilometers per hour around a lap. The car was also driven by Stirling Moss and eventually spent decades in the collection of famed French Ferrari collector Pierre Bardinon.

Jacques Demarthon/Getty Images

#9: 1964 Ferrari 250 LM – $36.1 Million

In February 2025, a Ferrari 250 LM from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum collection sold for just over $36 million at RM Sotheby's in Paris.

This wasn't just any 250 LM. Chassis 5893 won the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans with Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt, making it the last Ferrari to win Le Mans overall for nearly six decades, until Ferrari returned to the top of the podium in 2023. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Foundation had owned the car since 1970.

#8: 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO – $38.115 Million

This 250 GTO became the most expensive car ever sold at auction when Bonhams sold it during Monterey Car Week in August 2014 for $38.115 million. At the time, we covered the sale under the headline "A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Just Smashed The Record For Most Expensive Car Ever Sold At Auction."

Ferrari produced just 36 examples of the legendary 250 GTO between 1962 and 1964, and basically every surviving example is treated today like a movable Picasso. We actually maintain a full list of current Ferrari 250 GTO owners, a group that includes some of the wealthiest and most serious car collectors on the planet.

This particular GTO had an extensive competition history but also a tragic one. French Olympic skier and race car driver Henri Oreiller crashed the car during a 1962 race at Montlhéry, France, and died from his injuries.

#7: 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO "Bianco Speciale" – $38.5 Million

For years, public auctions of Ferrari 250 GTOs were incredibly rare. Then another one finally appeared in January 2026.

Known as "Bianco Speciale," chassis 3729GT is the only 250 GTO Ferrari originally painted white. It was built for British racing-team owner John Coombs and competed with drivers including Graham Hill, Jack Sears, Mike Parkes, Roy Salvadori, and Richie Ginther.

At Mecum's enormous Kissimmee auction in January 2026, the car sold for $38.5 million. That sounds insane until you realize two other 250 GTO-related cars have sold publicly for roughly $50 million.

#6: 2026 Ferrari Luce "Chassis 0" – $40 Million

And now we arrive at the car that inspired today's update. The Ferrari Luce is Ferrari's first fully electric production car. The example auctioned Saturday was "Chassis 0," the first production chassis in the entire Luce program, specially configured through Ferrari's Tailor Made division.

The Luce's estimated MSRP is around $1.1 million, meaning Wertheim paid more than 36 times that amount. His winning bid was $40 million, making the Luce the most expensive new car ever sold at auction and, remarkably, the sixth-most expensive car of any kind ever sold publicly.

There is an important caveat to Wertheim's seemingly irrational purchase. The Luce was a charity lot. RM Sotheby's waived its buyer's premium and Ferrari donated the proceeds to the Ferrari Foundation, which uses the money for educational initiatives.

Wertheim actually pulled essentially the same stunt one year earlier. In 2025, he paid $26 million for a one-off Ferrari Daytona SP3 "Tailor Made," which at the time became the most expensive new car ever sold at auction. That money also went to charity. In the space of 12 months, Wertheim has now paid $66 million for two Ferraris at Monterey.

#5: 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe – $42.905 Million

The newest addition to the top five also happened this weekend. At Gooding Christie's Pebble Beach auction, someone paid an astonishing $42.905 million for a 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe.

Only six original Daytona Coupes were produced. Carroll Shelby and designer Peter Brock created the car for one very specific reason: beating Ferrari's seemingly unbeatable 250 GTO on the international racing circuit.

It worked. The Daytona Coupe helped Shelby American win the 1965 FIA World Manufacturers' Championship, making Shelby the first American manufacturer to capture the international GT championship.

The $42.905 million car, chassis CSX2300, participated in that historic championship campaign and was later personally owned by Carroll Shelby from 1975 to 1998. Its sale shattered the record for an American automobile at auction.

#4: 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO – $48.405 Million

In August 2018, RM Sotheby's sold chassis 3413GT for $48.405 million. It was the third 250 GTO built and won the 1962 Italian GT Championship in the hands of Edoardo Lualdi-Gabardi. Unlike many valuable race cars that have been crashed, rebuilt, modified, restored, and reconstructed repeatedly over the decades, this example was considered remarkably authentic.

The $48.4 million result established a new public-auction record at the time. The fever surrounding GTO values was even more intense in the private market. Just a few months earlier, we reported that a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO had reportedly changed hands privately for $70 million. That private transaction was not an auction, so it does not appear on this ranking.

JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images

#3: 1962 Ferrari 330 LM / 250 GTO – $51.705 Million

In November 2023, RM Sotheby's held a special auction in New York for a Ferrari that is technically even rarer than a standard 250 GTO.

Chassis 3765 was originally constructed as a 330 LM with a 4.0-liter V12 before being modified by Ferrari to 250 GTO specifications. It was also the only 1962 GTO-type car raced by Ferrari's own factory team.

A collector named Jim Jaeger had purchased the car in 1985 for around $500,000. Thirty-eight years later, he sold it for $51.705 million. Not a bad return.

#2: 1954 Mercedes-Benz W 196 R Stromlinienwagen – $53 Million

The #2 spot changed in February 2025 when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum sold one of the most important Formula One cars ever built.

The 1954 Mercedes-Benz W 196 R "Stromlinienwagen," or Streamliner, was raced by two of the greatest drivers in motorsports history: Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss. Fangio drove the chassis to victory in the 1955 Buenos Aires Grand Prix, while Moss drove it at Monza later that season and set the fastest lap.

Mercedes-Benz donated the car to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in 1965. Nearly 60 years later, the museum offered it for sale through RM Sotheby's.

The winning bid was €51.155 million, or roughly $53 million at the time of the sale. That made it the most expensive Formula One/Grand Prix car ever auctioned and the second-most expensive automobile ever sold at public auction.

#1: 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe – $142 Million

And then there's #1. Nothing else is remotely close.

In May 2022, Mercedes-Benz and RM Sotheby's quietly assembled an extremely exclusive group of collectors at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany. The prize was one of two Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupes ever built. Mercedes had never previously sold either one.

The car was essentially a closed-roof road-going version of Mercedes' extraordinarily successful 300 SLR racing machine, itself closely related to the W 196 Grand Prix car. It was named for legendary Mercedes engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut, who famously used one as a company car.

Bidding didn't merely break the existing auction record. It obliterated it. The winning bidder paid €135 million, worth roughly $142 million at the time. As we wrote immediately after the sale, the Mercedes had shattered the Ferrari 250 GTO's longstanding record for the most expensive car ever sold at auction.

(Photo by Michael Cole/Corbis via Getty Images)

More than four years later, the Uhlenhaut Coupe remains in another universe. The second-place Mercedes would need to sell for nearly three times its $53 million price just to tie it.

And consider what happened at Monterey this weekend. A brand-new electric Ferrari sold for $40 million. A Shelby sold for nearly $43 million. A McLaren F1 GTR sold for $34.655 million and didn't even make this list.

Apparently, if you want a spot among the 10 most expensive cars ever auctioned in 2026, $35 million is now basically the cover charge.