The Most Important F1 Cars are Up for Sale

Tom Hartley Jnr Ltd, a respected dealer of classic cars, is selling Bernie Ecclestone’s unique collection of historic Grand Prix and F1 cars.

Ecclestone, 94, the commercial rights holder of Formula 1 for decades, made it the global sporting powerhouse that it is today. His collection of 69 historic GP and Formula 1 cars is the finest ever assembled and is now for sale.

Many of the cars have never been seen since Ecclestone purchased them. Highlights are Ferraris raced in Formula 1 Grands Prix by Mike Hawthorn, Niki Lauda, and Michael Schumacher. He also has Brabhams raced in Formula 1 Grands Prix by Nelson Piquet, Carlos Pace, and Niki Lauda. Among them is a one-off Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT46B ‘fan car’. It raced just once and won the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp in 1978 by more than half a minute.

Bernie Ecclestone said: “I have been collecting these cars for more than 50 years, and I have only ever bought the best of any example. 

“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.

“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. That is why I have decided to sell them. I would like to know where they have gone and not leave them for my wife to deal with should I not be around.

“Tom [Hartley Jnr] is handling the sale for me because he knows the cars better than anyone else…

Tom Hartley Jnr said: “This is quite simply the most important race car collection in the world. The collection spans 70 years of Grand Prix and Formula 1 racing…

“The highlight of the collection has to be the Ferraris. Bernie has assembled a collection of Ferrari Formula 1 cars that today would be near-impossible to repeat. It includes the World Championship-winning Niki Lauda and Michael Schumacher cars.

“I feel very privileged that Bernie has entrusted the sale of his cars to my Tom Hartley Jnr business. 

“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.”