Some collector cars are valuable because of engineering. Others because of rarity. The strongest cars combine rarity, design, history and a story that cannot be reproduced. Steve McQueen’s Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S NART Spider has all four.
Gooding Christie’s will offer chassis 10453 at its inaugural Rétromobile New York auction in November with an estimate of $15 million to $20 million. It is one of only ten NART Spiders built, and it was delivered new to McQueen.
Why this car is different
The 275 NART Spider is already blue-chip Ferrari territory before celebrity ownership enters the equation. Chassis 10453 is the sixth of the ten cars and one of only two originally finished in Blu Sera. McQueen later repainted it in a darker metallic blue and changed interior details, giving the car a specification tied directly to his period of ownership.
The car also retains its matching-numbers engine and transaxle, original Scaglietti body and many of the distinctive details associated with McQueen. It has spent roughly four decades in the current collection and is now heading to public auction for the first time.
Is $15–20 million rational?
At this level, traditional valuation becomes difficult. You cannot simply take the price of an ordinary 275 and apply a percentage premium. There are only ten NART Spiders, and there is only one with this exact McQueen story.
That makes the car closer to art-market logic than used-car logic. The buyer is not just purchasing a Ferrari; they are purchasing a documented cultural object connected to one of the strongest personalities in twentieth-century car culture.
Investment case
The positives are obvious: extreme rarity, Ferrari’s strongest collector-era credentials, strong originality, famous first ownership and a public auction event likely to attract global attention.
The risk is equally simple: at eight-figure prices, the buyer pool is tiny. A record or near-record result does not guarantee an easy resale. Cars at this level can remain illiquid for years, and provenance must remain impeccable.
Autoniusy verdict: this is not a speculative buy in the normal sense. It is a museum-grade asset. If it sells within or above estimate, the result will tell us something important about how much the market is currently willing to pay for cultural provenance on top of already exceptional Ferrari rarity.
Source: Gooding Christie’s, 10 September 2026.
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