This Ayrton Senna Helmet Could Fetch Over $100,000 at Auction
Could this become the most expensive helmet ever sold?
It’s common for cars and motorcycles owned by famous racers or celebrities to go for big bucks at auction, but it’s not so common for a piece of gear to have a six-digit cash value because of its previous owner. But that’s what we could be looking at with an original Ayrton Senna helmet worn by the racing legend in F1 testing at the Paul Ricard Circuit on March 2, 1994. Senna wore this helmet just two months before a tragic crash took his life at the age of 34.
This is a Bell Vortex type SS Penske 93/94 helmet. It comes complete with intercom and headphones, a Bell helmet bag, and a signed letter from Pierre Van Ginneken certifying the helmet’s authenticity as the only one of its kind. Van Ginneken painted this helmet in Senna’s traditional Brazilian flag livery with a few sponsors logos on it including Nacional and Bell Helmets.
At the RM Sotheby’s Monaco auction earlier this year, Senna’s yellow Lotus-Honda racing suit sold for 38,400 euros ($44,767) and his 1993 Monaco Grand Prix-winning McLaren MP4/8A racecar sold for a staggering $5 million. Anything with any attachment to Ayrton Senna has pretty high potential at the auction block.
This helmet will be sold at the Bonham’s Goodwood Festival of Speed sale on Friday, July 13. The estimated hammer price is from $79,000 to $110,000 which is an awful lot for a helmet, but that sounds about right considering its previous owner.
