Steve McQueen did not baby his cars, and a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S NART Spider he once wrecked on the Pacific Coast Highway is proof. Chassis 10453 is heading to auction for the first time, carrying a $15 million to $20 million estimate.
Gooding Christie's will offer the Ferrari at its inaugural Rétromobile New York sale, part of the auction house's first US edition of the European collector-car event. The consignment reunites McQueen's Hollywood legend with a car he owned, crashed, and personally modified.
Chassis 10453 is the sixth of just 10 NART Spiders built between 1967 and 1968, and it is one of only two finished at the factory in Blu Sera, or Evening Blue. Luigi Chinetti, Ferrari's North American racing partner, pushed Enzo Ferrari and coachbuilder Scaglietti to strip the roof off the 275 GTB/4 berlinetta for this small run.
Completed in September 1967, the car was invoiced to Luigi Chinetti Motors and sold to McQueen through Hollywood Sport Cars. He wasted no time making it his own, repainting the body a darker metallic blue and having the seats retrimmed with a distinctive stitching pattern.
The 3.3-liter V12 made 300 horsepower, and McQueen drove the car hard enough that a rear-end collision on the Pacific Coast Highway popped both doors open. Junior Conway handled the repair, and the actor sold the Ferrari by 1971, after which it passed to J. David Kopf of Tujunga, California.
The current owner bought it in 1986 through Long Island dealer Grand Prix SSR and has kept it for 40 years, preserved rather than restored.
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