Michael Jordan’s Ferrari 550 Maranello Sells for $2.7 Million
Hidden from public view for almost 25 years, the basketball star's V12 coupe has set a new auction high for the model.
A Ferrari that spent nearly a quarter-century out of public view has become the most expensive 550 Maranello ever sold at auction. The 1997 coupe, delivered new to Michael Jordan during the closing seasons of his Chicago Bulls career, sold for $2.7 million through the online platform Joopiter. Bidding closed on the evening of September 30 after a two-week sale that drew 43 bids, comfortably clearing the estimate of $700,000 to $1.3 million.
Reports on the sale say the price more than quadrupled the previous auction high for a road-going 550. The car is finished in Rosso Barchetta over tan leather and pairs the 5.5-liter naturally aspirated V12 with a six-speed gated manual. It shows roughly 6,400 miles and still wears its Illinois vanity plate reading MJ 5. Ferrari is said to have reworked the driver's seat rails and padding to suit its six-foot-six owner.
The car was supplied through Foreign Cars Italia in Greensboro, North Carolina, and its warranty booklet carries Jordan's signature and Durham address. He parted with it in December 2002 through a dealer in Lake Forest, Illinois, after which it disappeared from view. John Temerian, co-founder of the dealer CURATED, spent about a decade tracing it, eventually finding it with a long-term California owner and bringing it back to Chicago at the end of May 2026.
For collectors, the result shows how heavily celebrity ownership can weigh on value. A typical 550 Maranello remains one of the more attainable twelve-cylinder Ferraris, yet this car's provenance, modest mileage and documentation carried it far beyond any normal benchmark for the model. It also shows that online platforms can now handle seven-figure cars that once would have gone straight to a live evening sale.
Source: Joopiter
