America’s love affair with the automobile is legendary, and the U.S. is home to some of the world’s greatest car collections. Think Jay Leno’s Garage or the LeMay Family Collection in Washington State. However, one of America’s biggest and most valuable collections is owned by a man in his ’80s whose career has absolutely nothing to do with cars. Although he’s a world-famous fashion designer, he has a huge car collection full of amazing and rare vehicles, yet they rarely go on public display.
Ralph Lauren’s Car Collection Is Worth Millions
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Though he’s more commonly associated with clothes and polo — the sport, not the small Volkswagen — Ralph Lauren is clearly a car fanatic. Albeit a low-key one. The self-made fashion mogul, who kick-started his career with Polo Ties before branching out into clothing, has a collection comprising more than 50 cars, but they rarely make public appearances. It seems most of them are kept in Bedford Hills, New York state, and estimates vary, but most agree the collection is now worth between $350 and $700 million, thanks to some of the incredibly rare vehicles it contains. In fact, it may just be the most valuable private car collection in America.
Having reportedly started his collection in the 1970s with a Mercedes-Benz 280SE 4.5 Convertible, it now includes a vast array of supercars and classics. That includes the so-called “Holy Trinity” of hybrid hypercars: the McLaren P1, Ferrari LaFerrari, and Porsche 918 Spyder. Although he is rarely seen in his most adored cars, he has been photographed with some of the rarest vehicles in his collection, which he’s been knwon to drive to prestigious events.
The Barn Find That Could Instantly Break Records
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Who Is Ralph Lauren?
Born Ralph Lifschitz, in New York, in 1939, the 86-year-old Ralph Lauren is one of the world’s most prominent fashion designers. With a huge brand encompassing fragrances, shoes, clothes and more, he has built up a net worth estimated at more than $14 billion. Over the past 50 years or so, he has clearly decided to spend a portion of that wealth building an enviable car collection.
The Coolest Cars In Ralph Lauren’s Collection
Aside from a plethora of supercars and classics, Lauren’s collection includes a vintage Bugatti thought to be one of just four examples in the world and a one-of-one Mercedes-Benz. There’s also an ultra-rare British supercar with a gold-lined engine bay and a Ferrari that’s one of just 36 ever built. Here are just some of the highlights of Lauren’s collection every gearhead should know about.
1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK Count Trossi
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The Mercedes-Benz SSK is already valuable enough, given it’s the last Mercedes to be engineered by Ferdinand Porsche before he started his own company. It regularly fetches seven figures at auction, but this car is a true one-off, having been commissioned by Count Trossi, who fitted a streamlined black body on the existing chassis.
Glorious to look at and powered by an equally glorious 7.1-liter straight-six engine complete with a supercharger, the SSK Count Trossi is a true one-of-one car with spectacular history. By modern standards, it isn’t all that fast — the top speed is thought to be around 120 mph — but that was astonishing in 1930, when the legendary Bentley 4.5-liter “Blowers” had a top speed of around 125 mph.
Although Lauren does not routinely display his vehicles, his SSK Count Trossi has won numerous awards at concours events, including the 1993 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the 2007 Villa d’Este Concourso d’Eleganza displays. If there’s such a thing as a priceless car, this is probably a good candidate.
1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic
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The 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic has to be the jewel in the crown of any car collection, being one of just four examples ever built, and one of only three surviving vehicles. The gorgeous Bugatti, with its hand-crafted “teardrop” design and aluminum construction was revolutionary at the time, and it is arguably one of the world’s first ever supercars. With a 3.3-liter straight-eight engine sending around 200 horsepower to the rear wheels via a four-speed manual transmission, it could top 200 km/h (124 mph) in a straight line.
The speed made it special enough, but with such amazing bodywork bolted to the chassis, it has become one of Bugatti’s most famous vehicles. Its value is difficult to judge, but a similar example sold for around $30 to 40 million in 2010, and Lauren’s car would likely fetch even more were it to go under the hammer today.
1995 McLaren F1 LM
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The British-built McLaren F1 hypercar needs no introduction, but the F1 LM is a much more endangered species. Only five examples were ever made, celebrating McLaren’s victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and they were essentially street-legal versions of the F1 GTR that won in northern France.
Despite the gold-lined engine bay, the LM weighs around 130 lbs less than the race car, and has 68 more horsepower, making it blisteringly fast in a straight line and in a corner. Capable of 0-100 mph in the time most modern hot hatchbacks take to get from 0-60 mph, the F1 wasn’t just rapid for its time — it’s still an incredibly quick supercar. Add in track-tuned suspension and stickier tires, and the F1 LM was a track weapon, even though its 225 mph top speed wasn’t quite a match for the “standard” F1’s 231 mph.
The Holy Trinity
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The Ferrari LaFerrari, Porsche 918 Spyder, and McLaren P1 all arrived at suspiciously similar times, showcasing slightly different ways of using hybrid power in a hypercar setting. Whereas the P1 and 918 Spyder are both more conventional plug-in hybrids, the LaFerrari uses the electric motors solely to augment the power of the 6.3-liter V12 engine. The McLaren is the most powerful of the trio, squeezing 986 horsepower from its hybrid system, while the Porsche “makes do” with 875 horsepower.
All three cars were at the cutting edge of automotive technology at the time and were brilliant in their own way, which has helped to ensure they are incredibly valuable and desirable modern classics. Today, the three supercars come as something of a multi-million-dollar package, and would be worth lottery-win money when sold as a job lot.
The Least Known Chrysler Muscle Car With More Power Than A Camaro
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The Most Expensive Car In Lauren’s Collection
Although it’s hard to accurately value rare classic cars these days — in an auction room, the value is essentially whatever someone is willing to pay — the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO must be one of Ralph Lauren’s most prized.
With just 36 examples ever built as homologation specials for Ferrari’s racing program, the 250 GTO had a relatively compact 3.0-liter V12 engine and weighed around a ton, making it agile and fast in equal measure. The Colombo V12 under its hood has also become an iconic power plant over the years, and the car’s race pedigree is second to none.
Replicas are infuriatingly common, but given the tiny production numbers, original vehicles are few and far between, so they’re accordingly expensive when they come up for auction. In 2023, a 1962 GTO just like Lauren’s sold at auction for more than $50 million, and we doubt the Enzo-approved Ferrari’s value has gone anywhere but up since then.
Lauren’s GTO, chassis number 3987GT, raced multiple times in 1962 and 1963, and won its first race, the Paris 1,000 Kilometers. The car was then purchased by Lauren in 1985, and reunited with its original engine in 1987, before being displayed at a handful of exhibitions and concours events in the 2000s.
Other Ridiculously Expensive Car Collections
Screenshot via Jay Leno’s Garage YouTube ChannelWhile Ralph Lauren’s car collection is spectacular, it’s neither the largest nor the most valuable in America. The LeMay Collection, in Marymount, Washington State, contains more than 1,500 vehicles, including historically significant cars such as Edsel Ford’s 1934 Model 40 Special Speedster, and icons such as the Ferrari F40 and the original Mini. With such a huge number of vehicles, the collection is thought to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Elsewhere, Jay Leno’s collection of around 300 vehicles is one of the most famous in America, thanks in no small part to Leno’s celebrity status. With a McLaren F1, a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing and a Lamborghini Miura, as well as a Porsche Carrera GT, it’s a formidable collection in its own right, and it’s thought to be worth more than $50 million.
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Less famous, but no less impressive, is the 250-plus collection belonging to Ken Lingenfelter. The son of a General Motors executive, Lingenfelter built his own performance car business, but he now has a huge collection of Corvettes and other muscle cars. A selection of other, European cars also sits alongside the American heroes, taking the collection’s value to around $100 million.
Sources: Forbes, Road & Track, Ferrari, Evo, MotorTrend, Jalopnik, Motorious, Supercar Blondie, SlashGear, LeMay Collections, CarBuzz, Barchetta.cc, Sotheby’s, The Lingenfelter Collection, Yahoo Finance, Paul Russell and Company, Bugatti
