A Rare Chance for Ferrari Aficionados to Own a Classic Model With Virtually No Miles

If you like your Ferrari purchases to have only delivery miles on them, this sale might be for you.

What RM Sotheby’s is calling the Factory Fresh Collection includes 17 Ferraris, many barely driven, as well as a rare Jaguar XJ220 supercar, a highly desirable E-Type roadster, and a Bentley Turbo R Drophead Coupé. The auction takes place at Marlborough House in London on Nov. 4, coinciding with the famous London to Brighton run for pre-1905 veteran cars the next day.

Pride of the Factory Fresh collection is this 1994 Ferrari 512 TR Spider with just 570 kilometers recorded.
OneSavage/sgcarshoot, courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

The star of the collection is probably the 1994 Ferrari 512 TR Spider, just one of three built that year, and the only one in its combination of Blu Cobalto paint and Blu Scuro Connolly leather interior. The odometer shows just 570 kilometres (354 miles). In keeping with the as-delivered theme, the car comes with its service book, technical manual, and a spare key. Provided it’s been serviced for the road, the owner will in effect be getting a new car. The estimate is £2.1 million to £2.7 million (US$2.56 million to US$3.3 million).

“This a truly remarkable collection,” Peter Haynes, RM Sotheby’s marketing and communications director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), tells Penta. “There are some very rare cars in their own right, but the standout feature across the majority of the cars is the very low mileage—barely driven in some cases. My personal highlights include the 1994 Ferrari 512 TR Spyder which is one of just three in existence, in addition to the 1992 Ferrari Mondial T, which reads a hardly believable one kilometre on the odometer.” There are two other 512 TRs in the collection, a 1992 (also blue) and a second 1992 in U.K. specification (right-hand drive) with only 3,904 miles recorded. The first of these has a high estimate of £275,000 and the second £320,000.

The 1990 Ferrari Testarossa has just 161 kilometres on the odometer.
Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

The 1990 Ferrari Testarossa has a surreal 160 kilometres, and is one of just 438 built in right-hand drive. The high estimate is £200,000. The 2001 Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina (high estimate £350,000) was one of 48 built with drive on the right side, and has traveled only 220 kilometres. One of the two 2008 599 GTB Fioranos has covered only 267 kilometres—making it one of the lowest-mileage in existence. Its high estimate is £180,000.

The Bentley Turbo R Drophead is a performance-oriented convertible.
Robert Cooper, courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

Other Ferraris in the collection with their recorded mileage: 1994 Mondial T Coupé (one kilometre); 1992 348 TS (130 kilometres); a second 1992 348 TS (179 kilometres); 2007 F430 (104 kilometres); 1994 348 GTB (181 kilometres); 1983 400i (2,743 miles). A highly admired earlier Ferrari is a numbers-matching 1973 Dino 246 GTS by Scaglietti. Its high estimate is £450,000.

The 1993 Jaguar XJ200 two-seater is one of very few built.
(sgcarshoot, courtesy of RM Sotheby’s)

Non-Ferraris include a very rare 1993 Jaguar XJ220, one of 282 produced. In keeping with the sale, it shows only 46 miles on the odometer. It’s been recently recommissioned for spirited driving, and is high-estimated at £425,000. A 1969 Jaguar Series 2 E-Type Roadster is also being auctioned, as is a 1991 Bentley Turbo R Drophead Coupé. The Bentley convertible, which is just out of extensive refurbishment by London specialist P&A Wood, has a high estimate of £475,000.

Buyers have the choice of keeping these cars in the garage—and preserving their low-mileage status—or forgetting about all that and driving them with alacrity.

The Apple growth and profit machine is wavering, and the boost from price increases might not be enough to keep it going at historic rates. That dials up the pressure on Apple’s new chief executive, John Ternus.

The company saved the bad news for its earnings call, an hour after it posted its results for the September quarter, projecting that for the current quarter its high-margin services business will continue to slow and that its widely watched gross profit margin will continue to fall.

Apple AAPL -1.83%decrease; down pointing triangle shares had been flat in post-close trading but declined as much as 4% after the company made the projections, which fell short of Wall Street estimates.

The impact of high memory costs are weighing even more heavily on the company, Ternus and Apple Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh said on the company’s earnings call. Apple has stockpiled cheaper components purchased earlier, but those inventories are dwindling.

When Ternus took over as Apple’s third chief executive of the past 29 years on Sept. 1, he inherited sky-high expectations. The men he followed were among the most successful company leaders in American business history. Steve Jobs revolutionized consumer devices multiple times. Tim Cook expanded Jobs’s creation to spectacular heights.

The expectations are reflected in Apple’s huge valuation. Oppenheimer analyst Martin Yang noted that Apple stock trades at 36 times next year’s expected earnings, a premium to the overall market, even though its earnings are only expected to grow 1%, which is slower than its tech peers.

“We see insufficient upside to justify the premium,” Yang wrote in an investor note, adding that Apple needs to boost iPhone sales growth and turn around its slowing services business to make him more bullish.

Investors have bid up Apple shares because it has been a port in the AI storm—a reliable and capital-efficient business that stands apart from rivals which are spending hundreds of billions of dollars racing to the AI frontier.

While others invest in data centers, Apple has been pouring its own cash into buybacks and dividends. But that safety may be challenged if Ternus can’t speed up Apple’s innovation engine.

Apple’s lagging performance in AI was evident when its new “Siri AI” chatbot arrived this past quarter. Its long-maligned assistant was already stale the day it arrived, surpassed by agents such as Instinct and Muse that can complete multistep tasks for consumers, while Siri still sets kitchen timers.

Apple needs to give people reasons to buy its devices as they get more expensive. The company raised prices across the board last quarter to help offset higher costs. Without compelling new features, a big question is whether consumers will slow the frequency of iPhone upgrades.

The new iPhone Duo appears to be a bright spot. Consumers are scooping up the $1,999 foldable smartphone despite mixed reviews—so many that Apple can’t keep up with demand. Shipping dates jumped out to January soon after the device went on sale, a disappointment for the normally reliable Apple supply chain.

Apple said its revenue grew 12% in the September quarter, slightly ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. Its widely tracked gross profit margin, at 47.9%, also came in just ahead of analyst estimates.

Apple will need to find new growth avenues because a reliable engine during the Cook era—the services business—is slowing. Courts and regulators worldwide have limited Apple’s ability to charge developers big fees to distribute apps through its App Store, the biggest component of the company’s services segment.

One of its most lucrative App Store fee generators has been the ChatGPT app from OpenAI. Around the time Apple accused OpenAI of trade-secret theft this past summer, OpenAI began redirecting potential subscribers to pay via its website instead of the App Store, skirting Apple’s tollbooth.

Apple’s valuation has bumped up against a ceiling in recent weeks. Six times it traded above a $5 trillion market capitalization intraday before finally closing above the threshold, which it has already fallen back below.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.

A Rare Chance for Ferrari Aficionados to Own a Classic Model With Virtually No Miles

Apple’s growth engine is showing signs of slowing, as rising costs, weaker services growth and AI competition challenge its profitability. With John Ternus taking the helm, the pressure is on to reignite innovation and sustain investor confidence.