It’s not every day that a Ferrari F50 comes up for auction. Those days are even scarcer when it’s a yellow F50 we’re talking about – and when the car previously belonged to Ralph Lauren? It’s a truly unique moment.
Lauren’s classic car collection is world-famous, but opportunities to buy one of his cars come by very rarely indeed. The F50 coming up for auction this summer was first bought by the fashion mogul in 1995, then sold in 2003 and seldom seen since.
Ferrari produced just 349 examples of the F50, a two-seat supercar with a Formula One-derived V12 engine and a removable hard-top roof, to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The vast majority of those 349 were painted red, with just 31 painted ‘Giallo Modena’ yellow – and of those, just two were built to U.S. market specification.
This is one of those two cars. It is being offered for auction by RM Sotheby’s and will go under the hammer in mid-August, during Monterey Car Week in California. It has had the same owner for the last 22 years and, the auction house says, has not been shown or displayed in public since 2009. It is described as being in immaculate condition and is showing fewer than 5,400 miles from new.
The car carries a guide price of $6,500,000 to $7,500,000. This puts it firmly at the top end of the Ferrari F50 market, and demonstrates not only the draw of the rare color and Lauren ownership, but also the increasing appreciation of the F50 more generally. Initially seen as a car failing to out-do its F40 predecessor, the F50 value has surged from below the $1 million mark in the previous decade, to more than double that today. RM Sotheby’s sold a red example with just 1,000 miles on the clock in February 2025 for $5,532,500, and another sold in the summer of 2024 for $5,505,500.
Expanding on the significance of an ex-Lauren car coming up for sale, Sotheby’s states, “It is very rare that Mr. Lauren has parted with a car once acquired, making the opportunity to purchase a vehicle with his provenance quite a rarity. Nonetheless, Mr. Lauren retained the F50 until May of 2003, at which point it was made available for sale through Paul Russell & Company with 3,300 miles; it appears to have been sold into the hands of a dealer in Florida.”
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The car is described as being “the centerpiece” of its owners’ collection, a married couple who are known as being avid Ferrari fans, and who have both competed in the company’s Challenge race cars.
Further explaining how rarely the car has been seen in public, the auction house said, “Early in their ownership it was taken to a couple of events, including being driven for demonstration laps at Watkins Glen, and used as the poster car for the Burn Prevention Foundation Concours in 2005, as well as display at the Cavallino Classic in 2009. It is believed to have not been shown publicly since that year at the Celebration Exotic Car Festival in Central Florida.”
As you would expect from a Ferrari of such significance, the F50 has received Ferrari Classiche Certification, which was reviewed and renewed in 2024 with a new ‘Red Book’ documentation folder due to arrive with the seller ahead of the auction. This process acts as confirmation from the Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy that all components remain original and are exactly as they should be.
