Fancy Owning Michael Schumacher’s Old Ferrari F355?

There’s a lot of talk about a certain seven-time F1 world champion heading over to Ferrari at the moment, but let’s not forget that the Scuderia has already played host to another. It should come as no surprise whatsoever that Michael Schumacher owned a few Maranello-built cars in his 11 years with the team, but this, a 1996 Ferrari F355 GTS, is thought to be the first.

’96, as F1 geeks will have already twigged, was the first season that Schumacher raced in red, and it was also the year he took delivery of this car. It would have been far too obvious to get an F355 – at the time, Fezza’s shiny new mid-engined supercar – in the same Rosso Corsa as his company car, so the German opted for a low-key combo of Blu Le Mans over a Pella Crema interior.

This was also a year before the F355 gained the option of the ‘F1’ semi-auto paddleshift gearbox, so Schumacher had only one choice – a proper open-gated, six-speed manual, unlike the paddles his F1 car already employed.

That was hooked up to the utterly glorious 3.5-litre, 375bhp, 40-valve V8 employed by the F355, which sang all the way up to 8500rpm (some unverified rumours suggest that Schumacher’s car was fitted with an uprated engine that lifted this to a dizzying 10,000rpm, but at any rate, the car now has a standard engine).

The choice of the Targa-topped GTS could well have been influenced by the sunny climes of Monaco, where Schumacher used the car until at least 1997, having it serviced at the principality’s official Ferrari dealer.

The car’s been through a few different owners since then, the current one since 2004, and it’s now being offered again through one of RM Sotheby’s’ ‘Sealed’ online auctions. The mileage is just 47,500km, or around 29,500 miles – a fairly average amount for a reasonably well-used F355.

Even without the Schumacher connection, the car has plenty to satiate the perfectionist Ferraristi. It’s been looked over by the company’s Classiche programme, confirming that everything was as it left the factory in 1996; and comes with the desirable optional Schedoni fitted luggage.

It’s also unquestionably one of the prettiest, best-sounding Ferraris ever, and one of the company’s last properly analogue supercars. The fact that it was owned by the team’s greatest ever F1 driver right at the beginning of his 11-year tenure there is almost – almost – incidental. But Schumacher’s signature on the back of the driver’s seat says otherwise.