In one of the most shocking outcomes ever at a public auction, the first Ferrari Luce ‘Tailor Made’ with chassis #0 absolutely obliterated its $1.1 million estimate by capturing $40,000,000 at the RM Auction in Monterey, California just minutes ago. And this is all for a car that starts at $600,000 and was panned in the press. Everyone outside and inside the room is talking about and no one can quite believe it.
I’ve spent a large chunk of this week sitting in the room at the large conference hall, watching the auctions slowly proceed. While there’s been the usual and predictable rounds of spirited bidding all week, the action eventually settles into an almost metronomic rhythm. That’s not what happened when the Luce–Ferrari’s first fully electric car–came on stage.
Starting with a $1 million opening bid, the auctioneer could scarcely catch his breath before the price shot up to $5 million. And then $10 million. And then $25 million. All the way up to the $40 million, making it one of the highest selling Ferraris of all time.
What-in-the-ever-loving-cavallino-rampante is going on here?
A Special Ferrari For A Good Cause
Just as a reminder, last year a Ferrari 250 LM sold for about $40.3 million. That was a rare version of a historic car with an impeccable history. This is Ferrari’s attempt to make something a little more appliance-like. A four-door hatchback of sorts.
Not that it’s your normal electric car. The Luce features four electric motors producing a combined 1,035 horsepower. The front two motors combined are good for a relatively pedestrian 282 horsepower, whereas the two rear motors produce 835 ponies. That means 0-60 mph comes in a nauseatingly quick 2.5 seconds or better. Other stats are a little more pedestrian, as it gets 330 miles of range on the European WLTP test cycle.
This specific Luce isn’t all about numbers, as RM points out in its listing:
The exterior is defined by an exclusive Madreperla Semi-Gloss finish, developed specifically for this car. Its formulation incorporates a dedicated Ferrari Tailor Made pigment, capable of producing iridescent reflections that evolve from green to violet depending on the intensity and angle of the light. The semi-gloss finish preserves the depth and richness of the pearlescent effect while creating a sophisticated balance between gloss and matte surfaces, enhancing the sculptural quality of the car’s forms. The complexity of the application process ensures that each example is unique and inimitable in its chromatic nuances.
The interior introduces a new interpretation of luminosity through the use of Le Mans metallic leather in Perla, an exclusive material developed for the Ferrari Tailor Made program and derived from carefully selected Swiss hides. Its distinctive softness and reflective properties contribute to the diffusion of light within the cabin, enhancing the sense of space and refinement.
For the first time, the secondary interior elements are finished in Grigio Corvara instead of traditional black, creating a visual continuity that reinforces the luminous character of the entire project. The theme of white extends to numerous details developed specifically for this configuration, including dedicated wheels, bespoke brake calipers, and the Ferrari logo set against an optical white background—an exclusive solution created for this car.
Right, so it’s black and white.
This isn’t just any auction, though, as 100% of the money is going to charity. Specifically, it’s going to The Ferrari Foundation. What, exactly, is The Ferrari Foundation. It is, per ProPublica, a real 501 (c)(3). what it does, though, has been a little vague. Our friend Abigail Bassett tracked down some more info for this article in Observer:
A Ferrari spokesperson said that the Ferrari Foundation “is a collaboration with Save the Children, whereby Ferrari made a significant contribution to help rebuild the Aveson Charter School in Altadena, California, whose campus was tragically destroyed by the Eaton Wildfire earlier in 2025.”
Because it’s a charity donation, in theory, the buyer will be able to write off a significant chunk of the proceeds.
Is This Real?
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There’s been chatter all week about how this auction might go. Would someone hoping to ingratiate themselves to Ferrari bite the bullet and bid high? Would Ferrari tap a bidder to make sure that there was a good impression made?
I’m not sure anyone other than the bidder themselves was ready for the biggest auction so far this weekend to come on Saturday night and be for the one Ferrari no one was quite sure of. Again, a yellow and rare Ferrari Daytona SP3 sold for less than half this amount yesterday at RM.
Shortly after the auction I spoke with a friend who arrived shortly after and I asked “Could you believe the Ferrari Luce sold for $40?” and he replied “$40,000?” When I told him he was off by three zeroes his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
It’s always difficult to know what’s really going on in a situation like this, though much of the bidding was in the room (as opposed to the phones or online), which makes it seem a little less like some of the drama was artificially encouraged. I’m sure Ferrari had a contingency so as not to embarass themselves, but they didn’t seem to need it.
There was also a moment where the bidding seems to have stalled out at around $30 million. It then jumped to $32 million and, skipping a few steps, went to $35 million. Then $36 million. The unidentified buyer didn’t seem to want to wait to get outbid and went to $40 million, which scared everyone else off.
Cheers went up in the room when the auctioneer finally dropped the gavel.
“How do we top that ladies and gentleman?” he asked after taking a moment to collection himself.
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Whatever the motivation for the buyer, it’s unlikely he’s going to need to wait for his next allocation.
Bryant Kreaden, The Car Shrink and former manager of Ferrari of Beverly Hills, says it might be a lot more straightforward than it seems.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily that he loves a Luce, I think he’s a Ferrari enthusiast, he probably owns Formula One cars [and] is that level of a collector and probably needs a write-off,” said Kreaden.
Top photo: RM
This screams “tax the rich”
This screams “
taxeat the rich”FIFY.
Too fatty, too hard to clean, and the meat tastes like an astray full of cheap Scotch. Couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth for hours. Never again.
Chop them up for compost.
Of all the terrible things it may taste like, I feel like, if anything, the scotch wouldn’t be cheap.
I hear they are gross. Perhaps dismember, disperse and donate (their assets and funds, not the body parts).
Deep sigh
It’s great that $40 million goes to charity, but not sure about THIS charity. It’s brilliant marketing for Ferrari, though. And I suspect they’re behind this at least a little bit beyond the car itself.
And hey, it bumps the value of all the Ferrari Luces coming after it as well as all 2024+ Toyota Priuses.
The big question I always have is how much of a charity’s proceeds actually goes to the cause it says (or this case, doesn’t say) it serves.
Remember Kars4Kids? In Minnesota, it was found that less than 1% of donations even go to kids.
https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-attorney-general-finds-that-less-than-1-percent-of-donations-to-kars4kids-charity-goes-to/421323363
Now I have that jingle in my head. Damn you.
I know a guy who used to work for a charity. Did sod all, drove a 911 GT3.
Apparently the lack of both customers and shareholders doesn’t encourage efficiency.
While I don’t doubt your story, having worked for non-profits for 20 years, the office parking lots are filled with corollas and the occasional Subaru.
We don’t have shareholders. We have donors who very much care about where their money is going and will pull their support rather quickly. No one wants their money going even to printer toner, let alone someone else’s Porsche.
yeah – there are notable examples of abuses of the non profit model since folks with tons of cash come up with all kinds of things but mainly non profits do a ton of good for society
This particular charity was mostly government funded.
It was a horrible waste of money, that has now been disbanded.
They’re supposedly partnering with Save the Children (don’t feel like looking up the Charity Navigator on them and how much additional money does Ferrari take for their own “administrative” costs?), but I remember a while ago reading that Ferrari’s “children’s charity” involved getting kids into racing carts, so I suppose appropriate to the brand, but of no real value to or in service of actual poor kids.
So you’re ignorant but willing to lambast them anyway?
The article actually points out that the Ferrari Foundation partnered with Save The Children (84% to charitable works, A- rating) to rebuild a school lost to the California wildfires.
There are numerous Ferrari named charities – perhaps you are confusing with another one.
Their issue isn’t with Save the Children, it’s with the percent Ferrari is going to pass on to them. But it’s speculation until we see annual reports.
The systematic defunding of schools and the brain rot of social media and disinformation has taken a toll on reading skills, so I’ll quote myself with the pertinent question: “…how much additional money does Ferrari take for “administrative costs”?” I can all but guarantee it isn’t zero and zero is as much trust I have in anything some sleazy company claims in the first place, so I don’t even fully believe out of hand that this goes to charity at all. Ferrari is massively profitable and the parasite who bought this is massively wealthy, why not just donate the money directly themselves? And why not quietly? Because, like anyone who makes a big show of charitable giving and work, it isn’t about being charitable. It could be part of a disguise, like psychopaths do to appear to be anything but what they are to the endless fools who are blind to them. “Surely, it couldn’t have been him, he volunteers at a soup kitchen!” It could be an internal excuse shitty people use to justify poor treatment of people behind closed doors. “I gave some money to a poor kid something-or-other, I’ve earned the right to indulge my violent tendencies against my family.” For Ferrari, it’s marketing opportunity—they dump one of these Nissan replicas on the market at much lower production cost than sales cost and, in return, get big publicity for supposed charitable contribution when their own “children’s charity” (at least in the past) has been helping well-enough-off kids get into racing f’n gocarts. The obsequious parasite buyer here gets to ingratiate themselves to Ferrari to que-jump future purchases of overpriced junk and write off a chunk of that money we the tax payers cover. This whole event isn’t charity, it’s a loathsome, foul, insulting display by ultra wealthy wendigos—this is rubbing their raping (literally—this is the Epstein island class) and pillaging of us all in our faces, but I guess some people are still blind to it. It’s like watching a video of an elegant banquet where perfectly manicured hands and the same surgeon’s specialty plastic faces are having various conversations interspersed with laughter over luxurious plates before the camera pans down to show cooked human babies on platinum patters. While I understand I got a leg up on identification by growing up with several psychopaths and narcissists, at this point where the elite no longer make any effort to hide and are in fact taunting us with their blatant, depraved behavior and the uncharged criminality by their puppet governments over the last decade makes the blindness of anyone on the outside seem so inexplicable to me that I have to wonder if it’s really a blindfold for those thinking they’re going to get an invite to the banquet.
Preach.
Pharisees.
Yeah this definitely isn’t a real charity that does anything.. just a tax shelter.
This is how the rich get richer and how another Ferrari gets thrown into a garage never to see the roads.
In this case I don’t have a problem with it. Money goes to charity and we also never have to see this particular car ever again.
But don’t you want to see what happens the next time it goes to auction??
Negative, Ghost Rider.
Do we want to see this on the road?
Right, just as iconic and classic art gets purchased, warehoused in temperature and humidity controlled storage, then eventually resold and warehoused again. The ultra-wealthy do really some weird things.
That’s right, money laundering!
Yeah, this was my thought too. It’s very common in fine art auctions to see eyebrow raising hammer prices associated with funds of questionable means. Even if Luce #0 trades later for $5MM the purpose has been served.
Now I wonder if the rise of crypto has depressed the fine-art market.
So Ferrari ownership has gone from “I want the best performance car in the world” to “I need a tax write-off”. Yaaay.
It’s likely that the American public will fund about $14 million of this purchase. The top tax rate is 37%. So if we figure the price tag on this car would be $2 million and non-deductible, that leaves a $38 million deduction, multiplied by 37%.
Another way to look at this is that the buyer directed the US government to give $14 million to the Ferrari Foundation. Let’s hope the FF does something worthwhile with the money.
Well let’s just see what the foundation does: in 2025 it took in $25M. It spent $1.3M including their likely well-compensated leadership salaries. You do the math.
Yeah, that’s why I research charities before I donate. I want to make sure they are using the donations for the stated purpose, not enriching themselves. Unfortunately the IRS does not have the ability to audit and revoke the charitable status of all these foundations that don’t serve the public good.
Wait, if the IRS can’t revoke charitable status then who can? The justice department? The treasury? What happens if the leaders of those department are also in kahoots with corrupt charaties? Nobody can stop them at the federal level?
I know this is a problem at the state level too. last session my state legislature gave 100M to a bunch of nonprofits and then quite a few members turned around and got positions at the nonprofits. They got “caught” and a few resigned but nobody went to jail as our AG declined to prosecute (same political party) meanwhile the money is gone.
The IRS can revoke charitable status, but they don’t have the resources to perform the audits. Tax exempt entities require a different knowledge set to examine than income tax issues, so beyond the basic budgetary staffing issues, it requires specialized training. Then when you look at the bigger picture, there’s little return on the investment when you do revoke a charitable status, so the managerial will simply isn’t there to increase the resources allocated. Finally, there’s the political fallout from “attacking” charitable entities. It creates a lot of bad press and due to privacy laws, the IRS can’t comment on any of it, whether it’s true or not. The presidential administration sets the priorities of the agency and no administration want’s to be seen as going after charities.
So, lots of reasons, some understandable and some not as much, but it all results in the agency tasked with the enforcement being functionally unable to do it.
My personal opinion is that corruption needs to be weeded out and prosecuted, no matter where it occurs. Reality is a lot more complicated.
Oh that makes sense, thank you for the explanation. That is sad.
This makes me want to start a car charity. Mainly to help regular people and to keep the government from getting taxes.
Taxation without any kind of reasonable representation these days.
Do it!
Their officers all take no compensation from the Foundation. They may take a tax write-off on their time, but that is probably not worth it to them.
I stand corrected, good point. Mine also remains that they disburse far fewer funds than come in.
The very wealthy that spend $40 million on a car do not pay income taxes or payroll taxes so the rates really don’t matter.
Well, I’m not arguing that there is equity in the system, just pointing out that the government subsidy here isn’t the full $40 million. If the buyer isn’t paying taxes anyway, the subsidy is $0.
Life has too many zeroes anymore. And this thing is a gussied up Nissan, right? It certainly “ain’t no” Ferrari, now is it? Where are the curves, the ferocious sensuality? It looks like a bar-of-soap kit car, now doesn’t it? Its testosterone has leaked out onto the clay room floor.
Lot of people commenting seem really upset that a vehicle they regarded as an abomination has just been sold for $40 million.
I get that it’s an obscene amount of money. I agree that it says something about governments’ tax systems, and how they are creating inequity.
I’ll even give you that this vehicle is not everyone’s cup of tea, but the fact that other cars are celebrated for their exorbitant auction prices, but THIS one gets your panties in a bunch says it’s not about the rich and taxes.
It’s about you not accepting that car culture extends beyond your narrow definition of what you find cool.
And isn’t THAT what Autopian is supposed to be about, embracing all things car culture?
I would say multiple things are true here. One is that anyone who has $40 million to spend is already not paying nearly enough taxes. The other is that this car is brilliantly engineered and the most practically daily-drivable Ferrari ever. Another is that this individual car might not be given all the BS about the paint, and it almost certainly won’t be. Yet another is that Ferrari’s company-named “foundation” sounds iffy on the face of it and would be worth the authorities – realistically most likely the EU ones – looking into.
I’m sure they pay more in taxes then you will pay in your entire life, and I’m also sure they use less tax funded services than you do – so how much is enough?
I noticed you never got an answer but it seems to me they think any money above a certain amount below $40M should be taxed at 100%.
That seems arbitrary, they should just give us a % they think the top earners should pay and we can argue on that %.
*$40 million to spend on THIS. Their total net worth is many multiples higher.
lol. “Car culture” he said when a certified dud of a car and a financial engineering foundation are involved. Is this the same guy who ate the banana duct taped to the wall?
They’re all disgusting, but with history, provenance, and well regarded aesthetics, there’s arguable value in those other cars. They are tickets to global events where people want to see them, hear them, and perhaps they have memories of races watched with them, drivers who drove them, etc. that endear them to a great many people who could never afford them. They are essentially trading as fine art while this is a banana taped to a wall. It’s particularly emblematic of the disgusting increasing divide in net worth and my first thought was: I wonder how many times I could pull the lever on a guillotine before my elbow would get sore? Either way, I’d sleep well after. It’s not “jealousy” as I have enough and much more would be given away and not for tax write off purposes, but to actually help, it’s simple disgust with massive scale inequality, something even some animals have been observed to feel. This “tax write off” or pathetic kiss-ass loser looking to ingratiate himself to a luxury company that’s become purveyor of Emperor’s New Clothes products so he can have permission to spend even more on their future goods could also have bid up any of the other vehicles instead of this one. Tax write off is also not an acceptable justification—he could just pay his damn taxes to help support the stability of a system that allowed him to accumulate such obscene wealth as these Epstein island pansies would never survive, never mind thrive as they have, in a chaotic system. I guess that’s why they’re building data centers to control us, thinking that will save them from us and, with AI robots coming, maybe it will, but it won’t save them from their machines.
Given they’re anonymous, I’d wager this isn’t the only auction they won this year.
Ferrari did it themselves through a proxy. No way this was genuine.
$40M for the first Ferrari Luce? Damn, we really gotta start taxing the obscenely rich. And for their own good too; hoarding incompreenshible amounts of wealth is making them so dumb, you get things like the FOURTY FUCKING MILLION FERRARI LUCE.
Money doesn’t buy much any more. Heck, for fourty million dollars, you can get a pretty good professional football player for one season.
Heck foury million won’t even buy you a highway expansion or even a couple of extra lanes these days. Maybe a few residential streets.
I’d like to point out that the Dream Cruise was this week and weekend, but we had 3 Autopian staff at the supercar manufacturer fluffing events all week.
In contrast, it’s a diverse group of people of all ages and quintessentially pro-car
Content keeps the site afloat and we get that. But, I do think it’s been a weird week at the site
Good point, I’d like to see them send Mercedes and Thomas there since their writing styles complement each other and they’re in the region anyway, Detroit being just about halfway between Chicago and Toronto.
I 100% agree with this. About a dozen sites popped up in my feed with the new Spyker, the new A/M, etc. I’m not saying that these things aren’t worth covering to some extent but they’re arguably not “cars” so much as theoretically drivable objets d’art and spending so much time on them is doing a bit of a disservice to this site and a lot of the readership. I think many of the readers here connect more with events like Woodward that aren’t aimed at the top .001%. Hopefully this week we get some articles about the fun side of Monterey as opposed to walking around a half-built hypercar with one working door (although that was actually pretty funny).
I went to Monterey car week once (it was enough) and the best thing by far was the scenery of the peninsula, the aquarium, the food (and just about everything else about the cross-country drive and going up and down the coast of CA). The best things involving cars (besides driving mine) were seeing some of them being driven and parked among the boring normal stuff.
The golf overlap is kinda hilarious to me but given the cars at the event makes sense.
I would have loved to go to the Dream Cruise! Honestly, it would have been a great excuse to take the Saturn Sky on its first road trip in years, or maybe even my diesel Smart. I’m only about 5.5 hours from Detroit, too.
Unfortunately, with the main editors out at Pebble, that leaves Thomas, Pete, and I to hold down the fort when they’re gone.
Mercedes— I moved to Carmel a few months ago and would LOVE to write a post about what a fucking nightmare car week is for the people who live here. People literally stock up on food and do not leave their houses for a week. The entire peninsula sounds like a swarm of angry bees. Pretty much all non-car events get cancelled so ppl with McLarens can sit in gridlock with a bunch of other people with McLarens.
5.5 hours in a Smart? You have a lot more endurance than me!
I’ve done a lot worse! 36 hours in a Smart from Los Angeles to Chicago, stopping only for fuel and in-car naps.
No coverage of the Dream Cruise in metro Detroit is borderline shameful. Seeing Mercedes response and the reasons why makes sense, but I really hate that there are ZERO posts about Dream Cruise or the lead up to it.
The Woodward event is everything car culture with something for everyone – classics, supercars, beaters, shitboxes, restomods, vintage antiques, survivors – you’d be hard pressed to find a more diverse collection of cars and car culture anywhere in the world in a scale that is measured by miles and and the number of communities it takes place in.
I concur. Feels kind of price-taggish.
Agreed! This seems like an oversight! I want to see some coverage of Monterey of course, but skipping out on coverage of Dream Cruise is really unfortunate. David lived in Michigan, Mercedes isn’t far from there…maybe send SWG on special assignment or something?
Something I found interesting was the YouTube views listed for each of the “should I sell it?” series. Shelby Pantera: 51k. Playboy: 1.2k. Yep, YouTube algorithms are notorious, and it’s not the same as this site, but I think the “content keeps the site afloat” is possibly more extreme than one might guess at first blush.
Which is an interesting long term question. Can a site based around an auto-intelligentsia make it long term balancing all the different demands? Will it be The Atlantic, or The New Republic? My (literal) money is on the former, but the meta-story is interesting to me too.
I’ve suggested for two years that The Autopian send one person to some of the lower-key earlier in Car Week (free) events. There would be months of stories about interesting cars and their owners. Here are a few ideas from just two events:
Dream Cruise is for car people, “Car Week” is for ad clicks.
As someone who went to the dream cruise, I like seeing the coverage for car week.
I’d much rather enjoy car culture than be bombarded by photographers trying to get the next shot of something I wont ever be able to afford.
Ah, now it makes sense. The Luce is the car equivalent of the banana duct taped to the wall art from a while back.
Dammit, I used the same example before reading down the comments, but I guess it readily conjures up that association.
Me too! Reading this connection multiple times makes me feel like we’re 100% correct.
Yes, that emperor is naked, we all see it (and trying to contain our snickering)!
Wait, but I have a new artwork! It entices the viewer to contemplate not only the definition and substance of art, the value of aesthetics, and the ephemerality of existence; it challenges us to reconceive the relationships of validity, uniqueness, logic and precedence, of physicality and mentality.
It is a wall, duct taped to a banana.
I’m not American, and I don’t understand the American tax system
How does this tax write off thing work?
Does it mean that by buying this Luce for $40m and calling it a charitable donation, they claim $40m back on taxes? Meaning the US tax system is down by $40m and the American taxpayer has funded this?
Or does it mean that they save whatever the taxes would be on $40m (idk what that amount would be)? Which still means the US tax system is down by whatever that tax amount would be and the American taxpayer has partly funded this?
Either way, it just doesn’t make sense.
Good catch, you’re right, it doesn’t make sense. I’m not American either, I don’t see why you could write off the purchase of an overpriced luxury car?
It means you save whatever taxes would be on $40m of your income
So if I understand correctly, that means that part of the $40m that was paid for this car has been funded by the American taxpayers, because the US tax system has lost out on that amount of tax revenue. Is that correct?
And how much might that be? Assuming a very high earner / top-rate taxpayer.
It’s likely that the American public will fund about $14 million of this purchase. The top tax rate is 37%. So if we figure the price tag on this car would be $2 million and non-deductible, that leaves a $38 million deduction, multiplied by 37%.
Another way to look at this is that the buyer directed the US government to give $14 million to the Ferrari Foundation. Let’s hope the FF does something worthwhile with the money.
Now I wonder if they’ll sell it next year or so for what will surely be a massive loss and write that off as well.
I believe, but have not taken the time to verify, that the taxable basis would be the market value of the vehicle at purchase, $2 million in my example above. If the buyer sold the vehicle for less than $2 million, the buyer would be allowed a capital loss of the difference. This loss would only be allowed to offset capital gains plus $3000 and carry forward perpetually until exhausted.
Yeah, that actually makes sense as, otherwise BS massive overpaying transactions would be standard procedure.
Nine of that is true. No money from the American taxpayer went to purchasing the car and no money from the Federal government went to charity. The government chose to take less money from this person (just as it does from everyone that donates to charity) to encourage charitable donations and works.
tomato/tomahto. I didn’t say whether I agree with the law or the purchaser, I just explained what the law is and the effect. You don’t have to like it or agree with me, but it is what it is.
US federal income tax rates vary from 0% to 37%. (The 37% rate kicks in at $640K for individuals or $769K for Married). There are all sorts of credits and deductions reduce the actual rates.
Then there are payroll taxes which are 15.3% from $0 earned to $184K then goes to 0% above that. There are no deductions for payroll taxes. (These taxes go to the USA’s old age pension and medical insurance program)
However, the key for the above is that they only apply to “earned” income. Earned income is what you earn from a paycheck from an employer. There is a completely different tax system for money earned from investments. These are “Capital Gain” taxes and they vary from 0% to a max of 20%. (The 20% tax rate kicks in at $545K for individuals and $614 for married). The key here is that the investment is only taxed when it is sold. Hold an investment for 10 years and it triples in value and you pay no taxes if you don’t sell that investment.
Then there are the super wealthy like the kind of people that can spend $40 million for a car. Most of these people pay no federal taxes because all of their wealth is held in stock or other investments not subject to payroll or income taxes. They also do not sell stock to fund their lifestyles. Instead the take loans from banks or private lenders to fund their lifestyle and then take out another loan to pay of the original. These loans are backed by their stock or other investments. They do pay some interest on the loan of course but it is a much lower rate than the 20% they would pay if they sold the stock.
That is just federal taxes. All 50 states have their own tax systems and none of them are the same. They all are some mix of income tax, sales tax, property tax, and fees. For example I live in Oregon. We have a high income tax (10%) but no sales tax, low fees, and moderate property taxes. Just to the North is Washington which has no income tax, up to 10.6% sales tax (varies by county to make it more complicated), high fees, and moderate property taxes.
Yes you are correct and our top federal tax bracket is 37%, so someone potentially saved $14.8m on their taxes. This does not include state income taxes which can be even more
Minus the “fair value” of the car
Well, it wasnt money the government had in the first place, so whether they would have ever collected that tax revenue anyway is theoretical, the buyer could have also donated the money some other way, to another charity or charities over the course of the year, but nothing actually left the Treasury’s coffers, since they never had it in the first place and probably never would have. Most people in that situation plan out their charitable donation budget for the year in advance and have an idea of what they need to donate to hit their desired tax level
I like the fact that every picture is from the back, so the car doesn’t look that bad 🙂
This is not a car, it’s an investment opportunity.
This isn’t so much a car story as it is an obscene wealth tosses some scraps to charity, but likely with side benefits for themselves, story.
Eat. The. Rich.
Amen, brother.
This bidder must have a Luce id and a screw Luce. If this wasn’t for charity, it would be obscene, but it is, so bravo.
Correct title is “someone paid $600,000 for the first Luce and spent $39,400,000 in real tax payers money to put themselves higher in future Ferrari allocation queues”
Think about it…how many people have $40 *million* to casualy drop that on this (or would even want this)? The owner will be apparent soon.
Sadly, with how bad income inequality has gotten, way too many people can casually drop $40 million on toys
The oil companies certainly do. They are making many billions in profits every quarter, at the expense of the average bloke driving to and from work every day. 40 million is just a fart to them.
He would rather own this turd than contribute more taxes. It’s his money blah blah blah, but he bought this garbage at 400x what it should be worth, just to avoid contributing a trifle for society.
Well bought.
That sounds exactly like what someone named Scam Likely would say.
And I also listen to Dungeons and Daddies.
Yea, this all smells like a scam.
My first thought when I read “The Ferrari Foundation” was “sounds as legit as The Human Fund.”
I don’t understand.
Not the Luce. Not 40MM for one. Not the one of the most expensive Ferraris sold . . . ever.
I just don’t understand.
In the words of my sainted mother, “It’s your money and you can do what you want, but I think you’re a damn fool.”
Technically it seems to be taxpayer money, because of the tax write off. This is insane…
It was never taxpayers money. The purchaser is the taxpayer so it was always their money. It wasn’t the government’s money either – the tax deduction is a government choice.
To be honest I will never earn enough to ever understand any of this, neither do I live in the US. So I’m probably talking from my ass either way 🙂