Ultra-rare Ferrari 512 TR Spider on an auction. Sold for an astronomical price

Last weekend in London, RM Sotheby's auction featured the "Factory Fresh" collection: rare sports cars with extremely low mileage. Among them was a Ferrari 512 TR Spider from 1993, one of only three built, which fetched an incredibly high price for a car from this era.

The buyer decided to pay £2,226,875, roughly $3 million, for the 1993 Ferrari 512 TR Spider. Of all the post-lift Testarossas produced, this is the only one remaining in its original configuration with a Blu Cobalto body and a virtually untouched Connolly leather interior in Blu Scuro. The flat, twelve-cylinder, 4.9-liter engine is practically still in its break-in phase: over the past 30 years, the previous owner barely drove this car 354 miles. This car notably took part in the 50th-anniversary celebration of the brand in Rome in 1997.

For comparison, at the same auction, an almost the same Ferrari 512 TR in Blu Sera Metallizzato/Blu Scuro sold for "only" £138,000. The slight difference is that this model had a production run of 88 cars, and it had a mileage of 34,093 miles.

Both cars belonged to Alfred Tan, Ferrari's official representative in Singapore and an enthusiast of the brand. In the 80s and 90s, Tan established close relationships not only with the heads of Ferrari but also with Pininfarina and the royal family of Brunei. Thanks to him, Pininfarina built a series of unique Ferraris for the Sultan of Brunei in 1990, including several open-roof Testarossa models. One of these cars sold at an auction in London a year ago for £1,467,500 (~ $2 million). Its mileage was even lower: just 257 miles. Ferrari had never planned to introduce an open version of the Testarossa, but two years after the model's debut, Pininfarina built the first Testarossa Spider especially for Gianni Agnelli, the chairman of the Fiat empire, in 1986.

The 512 TR Spider offers an upgraded front end (consistent with the styling introduced by the 1989 Model 348), larger brakes and rims, and a more potent engine with an additional 51 HP (Tipo 113G with a Bosch Motronic M2.7 fuel system and increased compression ratio). The powertrain is positioned 30mm lower, improving its dynamic characteristics.

The Ferrari 512 TR Spider was the most expensive car sold during the RM Sotheby's auction last weekend in London. From Alfred Tan's "Factory Fresh" collection, 20 cars, mostly Ferraris (17 in total), were auctioned. Most of them boasted very low mileage. Apart from the Ferrari TR Spider, there's also a 1991 Bentley Turbo R Drophead Coupe, modified by Pininfarina and one of only two ever made. Its mileage is a mere 286 miles. The car, however, did not meet the minimum price of £400,000. Similarly, a Jaguar XJ220 of 1993, with only 46 travel miles since leaving the factory, did not reach its minimum price of £395,000.

The ownership did change hands for the Ferrari 550 Barchetta: a right-hand drive car, one of 48 made in 2001. The buyer paid £308,750. This vehicle had only been driven for 137 miles. It is clear that Alfred Tan either did not enjoy driving his cars or did not have the chance to do so. The new owners now face a dilemma: to drive and enjoy their acquisitions as intended, or to preserve them in an almost untouched state, keeping their mileage symbolic.