One to Buy: ex-Michael Schumacher 1996 Ferrari F355 GTS
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Although Scuderia Ferrari has employed some of the greatest names ever to go motor racing, it can be argued that none have achieved more with the Italian marque than Michael Schumacher who won 74 races and five of his seven Formula 1 Driver titles during an eleven year stint with the team between 1996 and 2006.
As part of his contractual agreement with Ferrari, Schumacher got to keep a selection of his Formula 1 cars from that period along with a variety of production offerings, all of which were tailored precisely to the German driver’s individual requirements.
Set to go under the hammer as part of a Sealed bid auction in Paris with RM Sotheby’s between February 4th and 7th is the first of these: F355 GTS chassis 105416.
Configured in Blu Le Mans with matching hard top and Crema leather upholstery, chassis 105416 was delivered via Ferrari Deutschland on April 30th 1996 to Weber Management GmbH (the company of Schumacher’s manager, Willi Weber). Having been manufactured relatively early in the F355’s production run, 105416 came with the extremely desirable six-speed manual transmission (the F1-style semi-automatic gearbox option not having been introduced until late 1997).
Schumacher is understood to have kept the handsome blue F355 mostly at his residence in Monaco. The car received its first service at Monaco Motors, the official Ferrari dealership in Monte Carlo, on May 5th 1996 having covered 1639km.
Precisely how long Schumacher retained chassis 105416 is unclear; by 2002 it was in the possession of a French owner and in 2004 passed to the current vendor. Today the car, which comes with Ferrari Classiche certification, has covered 47,500km.
