1985 Ferrari Mondial Convertible Black With Tan. Best Color! Strong Running Car on 2040-cars

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What's the smarter investment, Ferrari stock or a Ferrari?

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is gearing up to spin Ferrari off into its own company, and float some of its shares on the stock market. But buying and trading in Ferrari stock could face a rather unlikely competitor from within. As Bloomberg points out, the values held by classic Ferraris keeps going up, and by no small margin. Even something as relatively humble as the 80s-era Testarossa, for example, has nearly doubled in value over the past year alone. Meanwhile the value of some models – particularly those built in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s – have skyrocketed nearly seven-fold since 2006. Just look at the 250 GTO, one of the most coveted of classic Ferraris among collectors: not taking inflation into account, they were worth thousands in the late 60s, were already selling for hundreds of thousands in the 1980s, and by now are trading hands – on the rare occasion when they do trade hands – for tens of millions. One sold in 2004 for $10 million, and another in 2013 for over $50 million. Those kinds of increases can make a vintage Ferrari seem like a sound investment. That might make it difficult for Ferrari's stock to compete. The company hopes investors will view it as a luxury goods manufacturer along the likes of Prada, Hermes, or Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, the stocks of which tend to increase in value at a greater rate than those of most automakers. But even the best of those luxury stocks have merely doubled in value since 2006, compared to the aforementioned seven-fold increase enjoyed by some classic Ferraris over the same period. Add to that the prospect of actually getting to enjoy owning a classic Ferrari – albeit at the risk of damaging it and hindering its value – and the idea of investing in Maranello's products instead of its stock can seem like a much more enticing prospect. Related Video:

Ferrari 488 GTE and GT3 unveiled at Mugello

Ferrari is preparing its latest assault on sports car racing with new racing versions of the 488 GTB. Presented over the weekend at Mugello, the lineup includes both GTE and GT3 racers to replace the current models that were based on the 458 Italia. Though little in the way of details were revealed at the vehicles' presentation, the principal change they present over the accomplished versions they replace are their new turbocharged engines. The 3.9-liter twin-turbo V8 replaced the 4.5-liter atmospheric V8 in the road-going version, and is now carried over to the race track as well. Output will, of course, be catered to the regulations pertaining to both classes. Not to be confused with the Volkswagen's hybrid lineup, GTE is the category that replaced the previous GT2 class, and with it absorbed the defunct GT1 class, as well. It's run principally at Le Mans and its associated championships, and the outgoing Ferrari 458 Italia GT2 has proven a force to be reckoned with. That car took top honors in its class every year since the inception of the FIA World Endurance Championship, and won its class twice at Le Mans. Its turbo successor will have quite a challenge in keeping up that legacy. The GT3 class, meanwhile, is a step below, running in the Blancpain Endurance Series, Pirelli World Challenge, and the like. Here the teams running Ferrari equipment could use some extra help, and the new 488 GT3 aims to deliver that competitive edge to get ahead of rivals. Those include GT3 racing versions of the Aston Martin V12 Vantage, Audi R8, Bentley Continental GT, Lamborghini Huracan, McLaren 650S, Mercedes-AMG GT, Nissan GT-R, and Porsche 911 (to name just a handful). Ferrari presented the pair at its end-of-year Finali Mondiali event, which wraps up the various regional Ferrari Challenge series run around the world. This year's was held this weekend at the Mugello circuit in Italy. Last year's was in Abu Dhabi where the FXX K was revealed. The previous year's was also held at Mugello, where the current 458 Challenge Evoluzione was presented. The 2016 event is scheduled to be held in North America for the first time at Daytona the weekend of December 1-4, 2016. With the GTB, Spider, GTE, and GT3 variants now presented, the next step in the fleshing out of the 488 lineup will be to present the new Challenge racer for the company's own spec racing series.

Meet the man who sold his Ferrari 250 GTO for a record $48 million

We all took notice back in August when a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO sold at RM Sotheby's in Monterey, bringing a record price for a car at auction: $48.4 million. The man who benefited — both from the proceeds and from his 18 years owning one of the rarest, most desirable cars in the world, chatted recently with Seattle Times columnist Nicole Brodeur about what it was like to say goodbye to such a beautiful machine — and how he's able to console himself with a serious collection of other fine cars. Despite the car, the third of 36, being "one of the most significant Ferraris ever built, bar none," in Sotheby's words, Brodeur says Whitten regularly toodled around in it in Redmond, Wash. — to lunch, on errands, to car shows — Redmond being a place where you do see an awful lot of incredible daily drivers streaming into the Microsoft campus. Whitten, now chairman of Numerix, a financial software company, was one of Microsoft's earliest employees, hired in 1979 by the late Paul Allen himself. He describes what it was like to be sitting on the front row at Monterey when the gavel came down. Even for a multimillionaire, multimillions being thrown around by three bidders for a single car is "very hard to fathom," he told CNBC. "But you're in a space where you have car collectors, and Ferraris are the most collectible car, and the GTO is the pinnacle Ferrari." "I miss it a little bit," Whitten says. But the world is full of wonderful cars, and an awful lot of them are tucked away in his warehouse. Plus, Whitten spent more than $2 million on the same night the GTO sold, picking up another Ferrari and three vintage Jaguars, including a 1967 E-Type as a birthday present for his wife, Michelle. In the column, he reflects on his beginnings as a driver — as an 11-year-old wheelman helping his brother deliver newspapers in their parents' station wagon. And on being a broke mathematics doctorate whose first car was a Dodge Dart. And on the beginnings of his collection when the Microsoft millions kicked in; on purchasing a 1935 ERA 1.5L Grand Prix racer from a Thai princess; and that time he hit 174 mph on an airport runway. Here's the column, if you'd like to learn more about a guy who sounds like he's had a pretty great life. And below are two videos put out by Sotheby's ahead of the auction. In the first, Whitten drives the Ferrari, talks about his love of cars — and you get a glimpse of his collection. The second video describes the car's considerable provenance.