A 1996 Ferrari F355 GTS ordered new by Jeremy Clarkson is heading back to auction at Iconic Auctioneers’ NEC Classic Motor Show sale in Birmingham, estimated at about €240,000 to €300,000 (£200,000 to £250,000). The hammer falls on 14 November. The same car found no buyer at RM Sotheby’s in July 2025 on a lower estimate, and a GTS in the same colours sold for far less that August.
RM Sotheby’s could not sell this Ferrari F355 GTS at up to €264,000
RM Sotheby’s estimated this F355 GTS at about €216,000 to €264,000 (£180,000 to £220,000) at Cliveden House on 8 July 2025. Its results page still reads “Not Sold”. The car was then advertised at about €228,000 (£190,000) or nearest offer. Iconic’s range now starts about €24,000 (£20,000) higher and tops out about €36,000 (£30,000) higher. The new work on file is an unpriced 2026 interior reconditioning and ceramic coating, on top of the €11,200 (£9,345) service, cambelt, steering rack and paint bill from May 2025 that Cliveden’s bidders already knew about. The odometer has moved from 14,899 to about 15,200 miles (around 24,500 km). Iconic also now calls the keeper since February 2013 the “previous owner”, without saying whether the car changed hands after Cliveden.
A similar Ferrari F355 GTS sold for about €144,000 at Iconic in August 2025
Iconic itself sold a 1997 F355 GTS for about €144,000 (£120,375) at Silverstone on 23 August 2025. It followed the same recipe as Clarkson’s car: UK-supplied, right-hand drive, six-speed manual, Rosso Corsa over Crema with red carpets. Its catalogue text gave 28,800 miles (about 46,300 km). Clarkson’s lower mileage and rare factory sports seats explain part of the gap. Even so, the new low estimate sits about 66 percent above that result, or about €95,500 (£79,625), and the top estimate is more than double it. Bidders also add a 15 percent premium, which takes the range to about €276,000 to €345,000 (£230,000 to £287,500). The manual GTS is not scarce by Ferrari standards either: RM Sotheby’s counts 2,048 among 2,577 GTS built.
Clarkson’s 1996 F355 GTS began with a VHS verdict and a colour debate
Clarkson declared the F355 “the greatest car in the world; ever” in his 1996 VHS special Unleashed on Cars, then ordered one. Maranello Sales in Egham delivered it in August 1996, with a warranty card naming him as first owner. He weighed green because everyone else ordered red, then ordered red, with Crema leather, red carpets and carbon-backed factory sports seats. Behind them sit a matching-numbers 3.5-litre V8 with 380 hp and a gated six-speed manual, both still in place, while Evoluto rebuilds the F355 Berlinetta with up to 474 hp and 9,000 rpm. The car also worked for its living: in May 1999 Clarkson retook his driving test in it for a Sunday Times column, and failed.
Clarkson covered about 9,700 km in the Ferrari before giving it away in 2000
Clarkson covered about 9,700 km (6,000 miles) in his four years with the F355, by his own count in Top Gear magazine in 2000. The romance had faded by then. In the TV series Clarkson’s Car Years he admitted he wished he had chosen neither the red paint nor the open GTS, and said he could not bear the shame of driving it around. The Sunday Times gave the car away as a reader prize in 2000. The winner kept it for three years, and a third keeper held it from March 2003 to February 2013. Iconic says it remains the only Ferrari Clarkson has ever owned, so the greatest car in the world, ever, never got a successor in his garage.
Clarkson’s three Grand Tour cars share the NEC sale with his old F355
The F355 is lot 186 in The Iconic Sale at the NEC on 14 November, and Clarkson is not the one selling it. His own consignment sits in the same catalogue: the Lancia Montecarlo Spider, Alfa Romeo GTV6 and Lincoln Continental Mark V, all with no reserve. Iconic’s F355 listing carries no such wording and names no seller. The Grand Tour has already restarted without him on 4 September, so those three cars trade on a finished era. Famous-owner pricing is not a British peculiarity: in September, Joopiter’s estimate for Michael Jordan’s Ferrari 550 Maranello started above the model’s public auction record.
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Few famous-owner Ferraris carry the owner’s doubts in print, and a 30-year-old file of order letters, columns and public regret gives this one a history no signature in a logbook could. Its buyer gets a fine manual F355 and the best story any F355 can tell. At the top estimate, that story would have to be worth more than the whole Silverstone car, and Cliveden gave no sign that it is.
The hammer will fall on 14 November between about €228,000 and €240,000 (£190,000 and £200,000) before premium, level with or above the 2025 asking price and just under Iconic’s low estimate, because three no-reserve Clarkson lots will bring bidders who came for him. That is a fair price for the V8 and the joke together.
