If John Lennon’s toilet could fetch $15,000, imagine what his first car might be worth.
The toilet in question, painted with blue flowers, sold last August at an auction of Beatles memorabilia in London. The car — a 1965 Ferrari 330 GT — is going on the block Feb. 5 at an auction in Paris by the British house Bonhams.
“We’ve really been inundated with calls and responses to the sale of this automobile,” said Rupert Banner, who secured the consignment last month, in an e-mail exchange Thursday. “Has it surprised us? No.”
Mr. Banner said Lennon, shot to death in 1980, has retained a “huge” following since the earliest days of the Beatles: “Poignant reminders of the anniversary of his birth in October last year and death last December just draw greater attention to his legacy.”
Bonhams reports that Lennon did not pass his driving test until he was 24, in February 1965. The event, as recounted in “John Lennon – A Life,” by Philip Norman, “made headline news across the nation. Within hours, every luxury car dealership in the Weybridge area, hoping for business, jammed the road outside Kenwood’s security gates with Maseratis, Aston Martins and Jaguar XK-E’s. John strolled out to inspect this gleaming smorgasbord, eventually selecting a £2,000 light blue Ferrari.”
Mr. Banner added that what little could be ascertained about how Mr. Lennon used the Ferrari “comes from biographies, which include references to its ownership.”
Such sources note that “he wasn’t the best of drivers and really more often than not was being driven rather than driving.”
Mr. Lennon reportedly had the 330 GT two-plus-two converted to right-hand drive, and then drove it for about a year before selling it. Mr. Banner said he does not know how many miles Lennon put on the car.
It is owned by a private collector, who bought it from Modena Engineering in the late 1980s and had it restored to its original livery.
While he still owned the Ferrari, Lennon bought the car for which he is best remembered: a 1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V, the second one he owned and which he ultimately had re-painted with psychedelic designs. That car passed through various other owners until 1985, when Sotheby’s, expecting it to fetch from $200,000 to $300,000, auctioned it off.
Instead, it sold for a stunning $2.299 million to Ripley International, for display in one of the company’s “Believe It or Not” museums. The car was donated some years later to a museum in Victoria, British Columbia, and is frequently loaned to other museums. Mr. Lennon also owned a 1958 Bentley S1, painted in a similar motif. It was last seen in a Sarasota, Fla., museum.
Despite its Maranello provenance, the 330 from 1965 is considered one of the least collectible vintage Ferraris because its quad headlights and wide grille gave it a resemblance to a wide-mouthed bass or other aquatic creature.
Bonhams estimates the car (Lot 363, Chassis #06781 GT Engine No. 06781 GT) could sell from $155,000 to $220,000, which would be almost double what any other ’65 example might be expected to sell for.
Celebrity associations, however, can create an inordinate amount of interest for all manner of collectibles at auction, Mr. Banner noted, as demonstrated by Lennon’s notorious toilet.
