Steve McQueen Owned This 1967 Ferrari. Now It Could Fetch $20 Million.
For four decades, this 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 S N.A.R.T. Spider, delivered new to actor Steve McQueen, has been tucked away as the centerpiece of a secretive New York–based Ferrari collection. Now, for the first time ever, this Prancing Horse is heading to auction, headlining the first Gooding Christie’s Rétromobile New York sale.
“Of all the iconic cars owned by Steve McQueen, this has to be the most elusive and mysterious,” David Brynan, senior specialist at Gooding Christie’s, tells Robb Report. “Only shown twice in the past 40 years, and never offered before at auction, the car is as cool as its original owner.”
This ex-Steve McQueen 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 S N.A.R.T. Spider is being auctioned for the first time.
Mathieu Heurtault, courtesy of Gooding Christie’s
It seems that McQueen fell in love with the then brand-new model in general while an example was on the set of the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair. In it, lead actress Faye Dunaway’s character, who drives the car in the film, casually dismisses it as “one of those red Italian things.”
McQueen put in an order with Luigi Chinetti, the renowned U.S. Ferrari importer and owner of the North American Race Team (N.A.R.T.). This is after Chinetti had personally persuaded Enzo Ferrari to build a successor to the legendary 250 California Spider for the stateside market. He requested 25 of the Scaglietti-bodied, V-12-engined convertibles, but a lack of early interest limited production to just 10.
The car’s reupholstered seats, with custom stitching and extra bolstering, were among the modifications that McQueen requested.
Mathieu Heurtault, courtesy of Gooding Christie’s
The actor’s car was the sixth to be built, bearing chassis No. 10453, and painted in a gorgeous shade of metallic blue (called Blu Sera). It was delivered to McQueen through Hollywood Sports Cars in Los Angeles. According to David Brynan’s exhaustive research, McQueen went to pick up the car with his good friend and owner of a body shop, Lee Brown. His immediate reaction on seeing the car: “I really don’t like this shade of blue. Can we change it?”
Brown proceeded to repaint the car in a much darker shade of blue, and added a number of features requested by McQueen, such as an exterior fuel filler, reupholstered seats with custom stitching and extra bolstering, and a modified radio surround on the dashboard. He also removed the bumpers—for more of a race-car-style look—and modified the rear spoiler.
A closer look at this Prancing Horse’s V-12 engine.
Mathieu Heurtault, courtesy of Gooding Christie’s
Apparently, McQueen made the most of the Ferrari, thrashing it along Southern California’s Pacific Coast Highway and Mulholland Drive. That was until he pulled up at a Malibu stoplight and got rear-ended by a distracted truck driver. Worse still, the impact slammed the Ferrari into a car in front, damaging both the convertible’s front and rear ends. While the vehicle was towed to Hershel “Junior” Conway’s well-known House of Color repair shop, the actor got impatient, so immediately went out and bought a new 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 coupe.
The work on the Ferrari Spider was eventually completed, though by then McQueen had moved on to his new passion for Porsches, selling the car in 1971 to a fellow racer and entrepreneur, J. David Kopf, of Tujunga, Calif. “We tracked down a photo of the Ferrari at a car show at the Hollywood Bowl some time in 1971, just after Kopf had bought it, showing it still had the dark blue color that McQueen had originally specified,” says Brynan.
Since Ferrari collector Anthony Wang acquired the car in the 1980s, it is believed that he has only shown it twice.
Mathieu Heurtault, courtesy of Gooding Christie’s
Kopf kept the car until 1985, selling it to New York–based Ferrari specialist Grand Prix SSR. Its team had the car repainted in its original Blu Sera color. The following year, it was acquired by the current owner, Ferrari collector Anthony Wang, who, at the time, was president of computer-software giant CA Technologies. Wang boasts one of the finest collections of Ferrari classics, including a pair of 250 GTOs, a 250 Testa Rossa, and a 250 California Spider. This past August, he sold his extremely rare Ferrari 250 P race car through the Gooding Christie’s Monterey auction. It fetched $18.7 million.
Since Wang bought the ex-McQueen 275 GTB/4 S N.A.R.T. Spider, he has shown it only twice, first in New York at the 1996 Louis Vuitton Classic, then at the 2003 “La Bella Macchina: The Art of Ferrari” exhibition at the Chrysler Museum of Art, in Virginia. As you’d expect, Ferrari’s 275 GTB/4 S N.A.R.T. Spiders rarely come up for sale. While the car from The Thomas Crown Affair was sold by Gooding Christie’s in 2005 for a then-record $3.96 million, it was the red 1967 example owned from new by Eddie Smith Sr, former mayor of Lexington, N.C., that hit the headlines. In 2013, it sold in an RM Sotheby’s auction for $27.5 million.
Apparently, McQueen made the most of the Ferrari, thrashing it along Southern California’s Pacific Coast Highway and Mulholland Drive.
Mathieu Heurtault, courtesy of Gooding Christie’s
“This car is unlike any of the other N.A.R.T. Spiders, not just because of its Steve McQueen ownership—which itself is a huge draw—but also because it has been out of the public eye for so long, and has never been offered at auction before,” notes Brynan. “It is a collector’s dream.” When the car crosses the auction block on November 21, it is estimated to fetch between $15 million and $20 million.
Click here for more photos of this ex-Steve McQueen 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 S N.A.R.T. Spider.
A 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 S N.A.R.T. Spider formerly owned by actor Steve McQueen.
Mathieu Heurtault, courtesy of Gooding Christie’s
