Late last year, former F1 ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone revealed that he was going on a selling spree. The 94-year-old partnered with UK-based performance car specialist Tom Hartley Jnr to sell 69 legendary cars from his collection — including Michael Schumacher’s 2002 F1 championship-winning Ferrari F2002.
Ecclestone had a valid reason for parting ways with his cherished collection through a private sale. “I love all of my cars, but the time has come for me to start thinking about what will happen to them should I no longer be here, and that is why I have decided to sell them,” the 94-year-old said to Motorsport.com.
Showcasing the ‘Bernie Ecclestone Grand Prix Collection’, Hartley Jnr took to his YouTube channel to talk about the significance of the F2002. The title-winning car was produced in the third year of Scuderia’s dominant era with Schumacher.
However, what makes this car so special is that it ran to victory not only at the hands of the then-four-time world champion but also his teammate, Rubens Barrichello. This made it the first car since the Ferrari 312T (1977) in which both the factory team drivers won a race.
The F2002 competed in a total of 19 races between the 2002 and 2003 seasons, winning a staggering 15 of them. In the hands of Schumacher, the car won 10 out of the 15 races it competed in. In fact, the F2002 bagged a podium in every race it competed in the 2002 season when the German was behind the wheel.
️Bernie Ecclestone to sell his legendary £500M F1 collection – 69 cars including Schumacher’s championship Ferrari, the infamous Brabham fan car, and Moss’s historic Vanwall.
This is THE most significant Formula 1 and Grand Prix car collection ever offered for private sale. A… pic.twitter.com/VFMEIOOrqH
— Vincenzo Landino (@vincenzolandino) December 2, 2024
The partnership between Ecclestone and Hartley Jnr means that the car will not be auctioned. Hence, the selling price of the chassis will never be publicly disclosed. However, another F2002 chassis was recently sold for a price of $6.6 million.
Ecclestone’s collection is pretty vast and exotic, with his proudest possessions being the Grand Prix cars.
The legendary Grand Prix collection of Ecclestone
Reiterating his love for the collection, Ecclestone told GQ that he wanted to know where his beloved cars would end up, rather than “leave them for [his] wife to deal with” when he isn’t around anymore. And given the iconic status of the cars in his collection, one cannot blame him for being this sentimental.
One of the most iconic pieces of engineering in his collection is from his time as the owner of the Brabham F1 team. Under his stewardship, the outfit designed the infamous ‘fan car’ — the Brabham BT46B.
With a cheekily innovative design, the car won its debut race, the 1978 Swedish GP, by a whopping 34 seconds with Niki Lauda behind its wheel. But before the FIA could outlaw the ‘fan car’, Ecclestone withdrew the design himself — making it an exquisite collector’s item for years to come.
Ecclestone also has a splattering of 1950s Ferrari F1 cars and the 1957 Vanwall VW5 which was pipped to the title that season by Juan Manuel Fangio and his pacy Maserati.
