Market Movers: A £31k Ferrari Trim and a £1.5m Speciale Aperta

Morning! I'm Hattie, and this is episode two of the Vertar Show, on Monday the ninth of November. Six degrees in London, grey as a filing cabinet, and dark by twenty past four, so it's a coffee-and-classifieds sort of day. Today it's Market Movers: who trimmed a price at the end of last week, and what turned up over the weekend.

Let's start with a Ferrari that barely got its coat off. On Thursday, AMARI Supercars, in Preston, listed a brand-new 296 Speciale in Rosso Mugello, forty-five miles on the clock, at just under half a million. By Friday it was four sixty-eight nine nine five. Thirty-one grand off in a day. I've taken longer choosing a sandwich.

The Speciale is Ferrari's latest track special, in the line that runs through the 430 Scuderia, the 458 Speciale and the 488 Pista. Twin-turbo V6, an electric motor, and getting on for nine hundred horsepower. Across the whole 296 market there are nineteen for sale, and seven found new homes in the last month.

And here's the bit I love. On Sunday, Romans International, in Banstead, listed its ancestor... a 2016 458 Speciale Aperta, in Rosso Corsa, with barely two hundred and forty miles. The asking price? Just under one and a half million pounds. That's roughly three of the new one.

Why? It's the open-top finale of Ferrari's naturally aspirated mid-engined V8s. Four and a half litres, revs to nine thousand, and only 499 made. Nobody's building that again, and buyers know it. For context, the 458 market as a whole has nearly forty cars at twenty-odd dealers, with the middle sitting around two hundred and forty grand. So this one's out on its own.

Two more trims from Friday, both ten grand. Paul Stephens, in Halstead, has a 1969 911 2.0 E in special-order Canary Yellow, five-speed manual, now ninety-nine nine nine five, a whisker under six figures. And 4 Star Classics, in Farnham, has a UK-supplied Mk4 Supra Twin Turbo, six-speed manual, now sixty-four nine nine five. There are only two Supras on Vertar right now, so that one isn't exactly lost in the crowd.

And the arrival that made me smile, on the same Sunday as the Ferrari: Graeme Hunt, in Battersea, listed a 1966 Lotus Elan S2. White, twin-cam, four-speed, a little under forty grand. You could have thirty-seven of them for one Speciale Aperta. Parking would become a lifestyle.

Right, the Pulse. There are just over six and a half thousand cars for sale on Vertar this morning. The rarest thing listed? Not one but two Pagani Zonda 760s, at European Prestige Northern Ireland, in Newtownabbey, both price on application. Which is its own kind of answer.

Now, the mailbag... the first proper one. A YouTube comment from Benzina, all the way from Canada, after episode one. The verdict: the 1955 Gullwing is the proper one, the Roadster's a totally different car, and Benzina would never trade their Gullwing for the drop top. Their Gullwing. So I spent a whole episode on 300 SLs, and one of you actually owns one. Thank you, Benzina, for the kind words and for being subscriber number two. I'll wear that like a badge.

If it were me? My heart says the Speciale Aperta, for that nine-thousand-rpm V8 with the roof off. But honestly... the yellow 911 E, a cold empty B-road, seven in the morning. That's the one I'd actually drive.

If you enjoyed this, give it a like and subscribe, it honestly helps a new show. Tell me what you're driving, what you're hunting for, or what I should look at next, at hattie at vertar dot com. And on YouTube, leave a comment. I read every one, as Benzina now knows. See you tomorrow.