Bernie Ecclestone has said selling his extensive Formula 1 car collection comes down to not wanting for his wife, Fabiana, to have to deal with it after he passes away.

The 94-year-old put his extensive private collection of Formula 1 cars up for sale towards the end of last year, which auctioneers Tom Hartley Jnr Ltd called “quite simply the most important race car collection in the world.”

Bernie Ecclestone reveals ‘very easy’ reason behind selling extensive F1 car collection

The 69 cars Ecclestone put up for sale have an estimated worth of £500million, and potentially higher, which include an extensive collection of Ferrari and Brabham models, alongside multiple others from throughout the history of Formula 1.

When speaking to the Telegraph, the former Formula 1 supremo denied the theory he became willing to sell his collection after his 2023 guilty plea to fraud, which resulted in a suspended prison sentence and a record £652million fine to HM Revenue & Customs – with prominent business magazine Forbes recently listing his net worth as $2.4billion (£1.9billion) as of February 2025.

Instead, he is looking to the future and does not want to leave the burden of selling the cars to his wife, FIA vice president for sport in South America, Fabiana Ecclestone, when the time comes that he’s no longer around.

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On top of that, by collating the cars in one place, he hopes the cars go to “proper homes” as a result.

“It’s very easy,” Ecclestone told the Telegraph when asked why his car collection has gone up for sale.

“With a bit of luck I might get two or three more years, and I don’t want to leave all this for Fabiana to sort.

“All these car dealers would be driving her mad, so the best thing to do is to get all the cars together and try to make sure they go to proper homes.

“Ace [his youngest son, ed.] might not be interested in handling all this either. He might be more into football.

“Sooner or later, this had to happen. I’m still more or less in control, so I can do what I like. Maybe in another year I won’t be able to.”

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