Donald Trump's Ferrari 'Underperformed' at Florida Auction, Despite Record Price

While Donald Trump seems to take a keen interest in the current state of the automotive industry, he doesn’t exactly come across as an car enthusiast. However, he is very rich and has had his share of obligatory Rolls, Benz, and Bentley-built vehicles over the years. And, like any exceptionally wealthy American male, he purchased a tomato red Ferrari, drove it infrequently, and then sold it off.

That car — a 2007 Ferrari F430 F1 Coupe — was auctioned by Sotheby’s over the weekend for a little less than one might expect. You would assume having the opportunity to say you owned “the president’s Ferrari” would add a substantial premium to the final sale price, but you’d be wrong.

Bidding on the F430 stopped at $240,000, roughly $10,000 beneath its lowest estimate. That did not make it a bargain, however. With the exception of the coveted manual transmission variants, it remains the most expensive second-hand F430 in existence.

That’s still a far cry away from the $460,000 Trump’s old Lamborghini Diablo VT raked in on eBay last September — almost double the vehicle’s market value. While the Ferrari didn’t reach its expected $350,000 price, the auction house released a statement confirming the buyer took possession of the F430 minutes after it left the podium for $30,000 above the final bid. Still, could this be a result of Trump’s below-average approval rating?

That’s doubtful. A more likely explanation would be the vanilla example that this particular F430 represents. It may be a celebrity car, but it’s also a red Ferrari with a hardtop, tan interior, and semi-automatic gearbox. It doesn’t exude any of the man’s sensibilities or style and, with only 6,000 miles on the odometer, it’s probably wasn’t his favorite vehicle. Trump only put 2,400 of those miles on himself, before selling it 2011 — and that extra degree of separation also didn’t do anything to help the final price.

Jonathan Klinger, a spokesman for Hagerty, suggested to Bloomberg that, “The appeal is slightly lower than if [bidders] were buying the car directly from Trump.”

Obviously, the convertible wasn’t an option for The Donald. However, he did add a few custom options to his F430 prior to taking ownership. The F430 features Daytona seats, Scuderia crests on the bodywork, and the yellow tachometer — instead of the harder to read red. While he probably didn’t make that decision to keep a closer eye on his engine speed, it’s still fun to imagine him bombing down the New Jersey turnpike at 100 mph, listening to European trance music at high volume.

The majority of presidential memorabilia hits auction well after the leaders’ deaths, when it’s at its most valuable. One of the reasons for getting the Ferrari to the block now has everything to do with plummeting F430 prices. The model just isn’t as desirable as some of its rarer brethren — even with a celebrity lineage. However, Italian supercars aren’t quite so synonymous with the man as luxury vehicles are, and he has a stable full of them. As a Rolls-Royce fanatic, the nearest and dearest items occupying Trump’s garage space are a 1956 Silver Cloud and 2015 Phantom. It’ll be interesting to see how much Trump’s more iconic vehicles go for in the future.

[Images: Sotheby’s]