By Khris Bharath – June 25, 2026
This 1996 Ferrari F50 Heading to Auction Now Wears a Factory Color Ferrari Produced Just Four Times
Any Ferrari F50 reaching the auction block is always notable. The mid-engine Ferrari supercar was produced across three years in production during the 1990s, and clean, well-documented cars surface only a handful of times a year worldwide, making each appearance something of an occasion for collectors. Chassis 106715 adds an unusual story to that scarcity: a factory red car that has spent its life cycling through three different colors, and now wears the one shade Ferrari itself reserved for just four original buyers. The car is being offered by RM Sotheby's as part of its Sealed July sale, a confidential, anonymous-bidding format the house reserves for a small, hand-picked selection of cars each cycle. Ferrari built only 349 F50s between 1995 and 1997, and within that small number, paint color does most of the work of separating the rare from the truly unobtainable. The vast majority, 302 cars, rolled out of Maranello in the brand's house red, Rosso Corsa. Giallo Modena accounted for 31 examples, Rosso Barchetta just 8, and at the very top of the hierarchy sit Argento Nürburgring and Nero Daytona, tied at a mere four factory-built cars each. As covered when an Argento Nürburgring F50 appeared at the model's 30th anniversary tour, last year, those two finishes sit at the height of the F50 market precisely because there are so few of them and because neither color comes up for sale with any regularity. That same scarcity dynamic has played out across the broader F50 market, too. A Giallo Modena example once owned by Ralph Lauren, one of just two delivered to the US in that color, sold for $9.245 million at RM Sotheby's Monterey auction last year, setting a new record at the time. It serves as a reminder of the significance of color in the Ferrari F50 market. The all-time F50 public auction record was set in January this year at Mecum Kissimmee, when a 1995 example from the Bachman Collection with just 252 miles crossed the block at $12,210,000. That scarcity is exactly why several red F50s have been repainted black over the decades, chasing a finish Ferrari only ever applied to four cars. Chassis 106715's path to black has been anything but straightforward. Built in 1996 as the 244th car off the line, it originally left the factory in Rosso Corsa and was delivered new through Cornes Motors in Tokyo in January 1998, beginning its life in Japan. At some point after 2001, the car was stripped of its red and resprayed white, likely making it the only white F50 anywhere in the world at the time, and it was further famously reworked by the Japanese tuning house Liberty Walk with darkened wheels, a revised rear grille, and a painted diffuser, none of which touched the carbon-fiber structure beneath. <- Gallery -> The car left Japan for the UK in November 2015, where it was returned to red and earned Ferrari Classiche certification in September 2016, with the certification confirming its chassis, engine, gearbox, and bodywork all remain original. Not long after, the car was repainted black for the first time by Carrozzeria Zanasi, the coachbuilder Ferrari itself uses for the modern Tailor-Made program, a connection that makes this about as close to an authentic factory repaint as a car can get without having actually left the factory that way. The F50, of ofcourse, holds a specific place in Ferrari's internal hierarchy of halo cars. Its 4.7-liter naturally aspirated V12 traces directly to the 1990 Formula 1 program, and it sits alongside the 288 GTO, F40, Enzo, and LaFerrari as one of the five cars that define the brand's road-going exotic supercar lineage. Among drivers who have spent real time behind the wheel of all of them, the F50 is often singled out as the rawest and most rewarding of the group. Much of that comes down to a mechanical detail unique within its family: the F50 remains Ferrari's only manual-gearbox, mid-engine V12 production car, a distinction that neither the Enzo nor the LaFerrari can claim. This particular example shows just under 26,200 kilometers (~16,000 miles) from new and has been maintained on an annual service schedule by Maranello Egham, in the U.K., most recently in May 2026. It comes with its correct flight case, soft top, roll hoops, and tool kit. Across its life, chassis 106715 has gone through four documented paint changes spanning three colors: Rosso Corsa from the factory, white during its years in Japan, back to Rosso Corsa for its Ferrari Classiche certification, and finally black, a history almost as unusual as the rare Giallo Modena example once owned by Ralph Lauren within a production run of just 349. RM Sotheby's has set a pre-auction estimate of £5,000,000 to £6,000,000 (~$6,645,000 USD to $7,974,000 USD), and the car will be offered without reserve, with bidding closing on July 16. View Listing Images: Alex Penfold @RM Sotheby's
