Mercedes F1 Boss Toto Wolff Is Selling Off His Ferrari Collection
Listed for sale is also a 1-of-350 Mercedes SL65 AMG that Wolff helped develop as a driver.
After Sebastian Vettel sold all his Ferraris earlier this year in what you might call a post-breakup clearout, Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff is now commissioning the same auction house to trim down his own garage. Although presumably not motivated by seething resentment for a team that maligned him, he's shedding a couple of his own Ferraris and somehow, a fairly unique AMG that Wolff even helped develop as a driver.
Tom Hartley Jnr is the auction house charged with selling the cars as individual lots, and is advertising them as coming from Toto Wolff's personal collection. There's a LaFerrari Aperta, a Ferrari Enzo and the Mercedes SL65 AMG Black Series, which Wolff hooned around the Nordschleife back in 2008 to help develop into a run of just 350 cars that were, at the time, the most powerful Mercedes production cars.
Wolff may have done the driving to develop the car but he hasn't gone far in it since he bought one, with only 5,000 kilometers (3,106 miles) on it. His Enzo has seen even less running, with just 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) while the LaFerrari Aperta reportedly only has delivery miles.
The SL65 and LaFerrari Aperta are owned from new and come with everything including original sale certificates. The Enzo was apparently sold to Wolff by Tom Hartley Jnr in 2014 and presumably hasn't seen a lot of action since, given the fairly obvious conflict with the head of Mercedes-Benz motorsport driving a Ferrari.
Speaking of optics, Wolff himself says there's nothing to be read into the sale. He's just clearing some stuff out for the extremely valid reason that he doesn't drive them. We're all about that here—ok?—I can't afford a supercar but I don't want the people who can to just keep them as museum pieces.
When asked at this weekend's Styrian Grand Prix if it had anything to do with business in F1, where Wolff owns a substantial share of the Mercedes team, he said "No, it has a more simple, simple background. I don’t get to drive the cars anymore. I don’t have enough time. I don’t think it looks particularly good if I would be cruising around with a Ferrari although [they’re] a fantastic brand."
"But I haven’t driven the cars for a long time and I’m going electric with the Mercedes at the moment," he added.
A LaFerrari Aperta costs about $4.5 million, which is a heck of a price for something to keep parked. The SL65 Black Series is a relative bargain, at a mere £299,950 ($319,585) and the Enzo goes for pretty much whatever number you want to name north of $1.5 million. Especially given the extremely low mileage and clear provenance of these cars, as well as the fact they're coming from someone with such a well-known name, they won't be coming in as auction bargains any time soon.
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