Media Post: The Ferrari with a tragic story that cost $38million and became the most expensive car in the world

Have you ever wondered what the most expensive car in the world to be sold at auction was? Online car buying service, Sell Your Jamjar, recently asked this exact question and posted an article on its site about the Ferrari that cost a staggering $38 millon. The car in question was a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta and was sold by an auction house in California in August 2014 to an unknown buyer but the car had a somewhat tragic history. According to the research by Sell Your Jamjar, the car which sold for $38,115,000 to be precise, was originally owned by Formula One racing driver Jo Schlesser. The Frenchman he took ownership of the 250 GTO from the Ferrari factory on September 11, 1962 and raced it with co-driver and friend Henri Oreiller.

But Oreiller, a 1948 Winter Games gold medallist in alpine ski racing, crashed the car after suffering a tyre blow out at 100mph and was killed. It appears Schlesser sold the car before he lost his own life six years later when he was killed at the 1986 French Grand Prix at the age of just 40. Another racing driver, Ernesto Prinoth, bought the car after it was rebuilt – although he also crashed it causing the roof to cave in (he was unharmed) – before Ferrari enthusiast Fabrizio Violati became the new owner after paying him $4000 (about $33,500 back then) for it. When Violati died in 2010, his family auctioned the car but even they could not have known that the 250 GTO – with its tragic history – would have become the most expensive car in the world to be sold at auction. Click here for the full story.