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Mecum Madness - Is This The New Reality?


What's going on here?

Mecum saw multiple bidders go crazy for a number of cars but particularly The Bachman Collection, primarily made up of Ferraris that achieved, in some cases, prices that were 3 times (!) that of the previous world record.


Tell me more

So, first and foremost, why did these prices go so ballistic?


Four main reasons.


1 - Almost all of these cars were super low mileage.


2 - Most were one or two owners from new.


3 - Most were in fairly punchy specs (if at times ghastly IMHO).


4 - I don't know. The premiums these cars reached can not be logically squared away. There is an element here of "I want it and am willing to pay whatever it takes" and multiple people (as we saw in the room) were willing to do that even if the bidding was well beyond anything seen before. 


Note: there was a fascinating couple of IG stories from John Temerian founder of Curated in Miami who was talking a big game about his contact Evan Metropoulos (son of Greek-American billionaire Dean Metropoulos) being very prepared to break some world records. The key point is this was planned and intentional, it wasn't auction room hype getting people into a frenzy.


Note 2: Lots of people saying these prices are a result of money laundering or tax write offs. Money laundering is such an un-evidenced assertion, ignore. These cars given their age and IRS rules were never eligible to be tax write-offs, ignore.


Second question - is this the new reality? Are these models now worth this amount of money?


To work through this, I'm gonna use a few examples.


Ferrari F12 TDF

The world record coming into 2026 was c. $1.7m.



What I haven't seen people talk about yet is the 3 other TDFs they had in the sale, all of which went unsold.


Included in that was a Special Order, 2,561 miles car which is displayed on Mecum's site as 'The Bid Goes On' at $1.75m. In other words it didn't get beyond that price in the room (unknown if the bids were real).


In other words, the uber low mileage car went for crazy money. The other TDFs all reached prices that were strong but by no means is $3m the new market for an F12 TDF.


Ferrari 599 GTO

The world record coming into 2026 was $2m, the next highest sale being $1.2m.


Mecum set another world record for an example with 104 miles at $3.96m.


Again, people haven't discussed the two 599 GTOs that went unsold or the example that did also sell at $1.32m with 9,457 miles on the clock.


In other words, again, the uber low mileage car went for crazy money. The other 599 GTOs all reached prices that were strong but the outlier was just that, an outlier driven by mileage, spec and provenance.


Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale

The world record coming into 2026 was just over $600,000.


Mecum smashed this twice in minutes. 




Yes, that previous world record was smashed three times over.


What didn't people talk about? Well, the other 360 CS in the sale. Not in the Bachman Collection and much higher mileage at 18,234 miles. Unsold, Mecum advertising this at $575,000.


You don't need me to repeat my closing words on this car for the third time, right?


Why should I care?

Don't get me wrong, this is an unbelievable set of results.


For me, what I think we've seen here isn't a seismic shift in values for 'driver' condition cars of these Ferrari models. I don't believe a used 599 GTO with miles is worth $2m+. I think the value for the usable version of these cars doesn't really change out the back of this auction. 


What does change is how those unicorn cars with incredibly low mileage cars with unique specs and clear history are valued.


The upcoming auctions in Paris at the end of the month will be a good barometer of whether these results send shockwaves around the world.


What's your take? Respond below and let me know.



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