Bernie Ecclestone to sell £300MILLION car collection as Formula One mogul puts 69 vehicles up for sale – including Michael Schumacher’s iconic title-winning Ferrari

Bernie Ecclestone is selling his private car collection estimated to be worth more than £300 million.

The Formula 1 magnate, 94, is putting his affairs in order so that his 47-year-old Brazilian wife Fabiana is not left with the headache of dealing with his unique garage of winning Grand Prix cars when he dies.

Ecclestone has been collecting his unique collection since the early 1970s, and it is believed to be the most valuable collection of its kind in the world.

There are 69 cars for sale, including the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher, Niki Lauda and those of the first British world champion Mike Hawthorn in 1958. A highlight is the red machine that Schumacher drove to the title in 2002. over £10m.

Sir Stirling Moss’ Vanwall VW10, which he drove to the team’s first Constructors’ Championship 66 years ago, is also for sale.

Ecclestone told the Daily Mail: ‘I’m 94 and with any luck I might have a few more years – who knows? – but I didn’t want to leave Fabi wondering what to do with it when I was gone.

A highlight is the red Ferrari that Michael Schumacher (photo) drove to the F1 world title in 2002

The Formula 1 magnate, 94, uses his business to help his 47-year-old Brazilian wife Fabiana (right)

“I love all my cars, but maybe I should have done this five years ago, but I never got around to it until now.”

The collection also includes Brabham cars, which belonged to the team Ecclestone owned when he gained a kind of commercial grip on the billion-dollar-a-year sport – a reign that lasted more than four decades until US conglomerate Liberty Media bought F1 bought. £6.4 billion in 2017.

Tom Hartley Jnr Ltd, one of the world’s leading dealers of historic racing cars, will lead the sale. The cars will not be auctioned, but are open to private buyers.

Ecclestone said: ‘Having collected and owned them for so long I would like to know where they have gone.

‘I have been collecting these cars for over fifty years, and I have only bought the best of any example. Other collectors have chosen sports cars, but my passion has always been Grand Prix cars.

“They are more important than any road car or any other form of racing car. They are the pinnacle of the sport. All mine have fantastic racing histories and are rare works of art.

“I have decided to move them to a new home, where they will be treated as I am and where I will care for them as precious works of art.”

Ecclestone, who paid £650 million in a fraud conviction last year for failing to declare a trust that had assets worth more than £416 million, is now based in Gstaad, Switzerland, after leaving London about five years ago had left.

Sir Stirling Moss’ Vanwall VW10 (pictured), which he drove to the team’s first Constructors’ Championship 66 years ago, is also for sale

There are 69 cars for sale, including the Ferraris of iconic driver Niki Lauda (pictured)

He also spends time on a Brazilian coffee farm – the size of Monaco – in Ampara, 140 kilometers outside Sao Paulo, a 25-minute helicopter flight from the city’s Guarulhos airport.

He and Fabiana, his third wife, spent the first months of the Covid lockdown there with their now four-year-old son Ace, who is car mad. They count 600 cows and cattle and 18 horses among their abundance of animals and fish, including koi carp.

A source close to Ecclestone said: ‘It is unlikely that his wife of daughters (Tamara and Petra) would want to be saddled with the hassle of selling Bernie’s cars.

“And let’s face it, if Ace wanted to start his own collection at some point in the fairly distant future, he would have the money to do so.”