Red Bull heir buys Bernie Ecclestone's F1 car collection

The collection comprises 69 unique cars and is valued at 500 million pounds.

Former F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone has sold his private F1 car collection. The collection comprises 69 unique cars and is valued at 500 million pounds. Red Bull billionaire Mark Mateschitz bought it for an undisclosed price.

Ecclestone, who is now 94, says he was worried about his cars as his 48-year-old Brazilian wife Fabiana would not know what to do with them when he died. He expressed his delight that Mateschitz bought the collection, one reason being that Ecclestone was especially close to Mateschitz’s father, Dietrich, Red Bull’s founder. Mark is Dietrich’s only child and holds a 49 percent stake in the business.

Bernie started the collection over 50 years ago. The collection includes Brabham cars belonging to the team Ecclestone owned, along with Ferraris raced by Michael Schumacher and Niki Lauda. Other special cars in the collection are Sir Stirling Moss’s Vanwall VW10 and the Ferrari driven by Britain’s first world champion Mike Hawthorn in 1958.

Speaking on the sale, Ecclestone said,  “I am 94 and with luck, I might have a few years longer. Who knows? But I didn’t want to leave Fabi wondering what to do with them if I was no longer around. I love all my cars but maybe I should have done this five years ago, but I never got around to it until now.” He added, “It means a great deal to me to know that this collection is now in the very best of hands. Mark is the best and most worthy owner we could ever imagine.”

Mateschitz, who took over the reins at Red Bull after his father’s death in October 2022, said: “I am very pleased that Bernie has placed his trust in me to take care of this historically significant collection.
‘It will be carefully preserved, expanded over the years, and soon it will be made accessible to the public at an appropriate location.”

Liberty Media took over F1 from Ecclestone through a 6.4 billion pound buyout in 2017.

Source: The Daily Mail