Jeremy Clarkson’s Manual Ferrari F355 GTS Returns to Auction

Jeremy Clarkson’s former Ferrari F355 GTS is getting another turn under the auction lights.

The 1996 car, ordered new by Clarkson and later given away as a reader competition prize, returns with the kind of provenance that gives an already desirable manual F355 a sharper collector edge.

Iconic Auctioneers will offer it at the NEC Classic Motor Show sale in Birmingham on 14 November, with an estimate of £200,000 to £250,000.

At a glance

• Jeremy Clarkson’s former 1996 Ferrari F355 GTS is returning to auction with Iconic Auctioneers in Birmingham.
• The car is a Rosso Corsa manual example with Crema leather, carbon-backed sports seats and a numbers-matching 3.5-litre V8.
• It previously failed to sell at an RM Sotheby’s auction in July 2025 and is now estimated at £200,000 to £250,000.

Clarkson provenance meets a sought-after F355 specification

Celebrity ownership can be a blunt instrument in the collector-car market, but this Ferrari has more going for it than a familiar name on the history file.

Clarkson ordered the F355 GTS new and took delivery in August 1996, later covering around 6,000 miles before giving the car away in 2000 as a reader competition prize.

Iconic Auctioneers describes it as the only Ferrari Clarkson has owned outright, a detail that gives the car a neat place in the long-running relationship between television car culture and Maranello machinery.

The model itself sits in a particularly appealing corner of modern Ferrari collecting.

The F355 is widely admired for its compact proportions, high-revving naturally aspirated V8 and the final-era feel of a Ferrari from before the brand’s supercars became larger, faster and more electronically layered.

Manual gearbox and classic Ferrari colours

This example is finished in Rosso Corsa over a Crema leather interior, the familiar pairing that remains closely associated with mid-1990s Ferrari road cars.

More importantly for many collectors, it has a six-speed manual gearbox rather than Ferrari’s automated F1 transmission.

The car also features factory carbon-backed sports seats, a desirable option that adds a more focused character to the open-roof GTS body style.

Power comes from the car’s numbers-matching 3.5-litre naturally aspirated V8, which is listed at 380 hp.

That combination of a manual shift, an original engine and recognisable specification is central to the car’s appeal, particularly as the market continues to distinguish strongly between transmission types on Ferraris of this period.

A second auction run after Cliveden House

The Ferrari last appeared publicly at an RM Sotheby’s auction at Cliveden House in July 2025, where it was estimated at £180,000 to £220,000 but did not sell.

Its return with Iconic Auctioneers brings a higher estimate of £200,000 to £250,000, equivalent to approximately $267,000 to $334,000.

That places the car in a space where condition, specification and provenance will all have to work together.

For the right buyer, the attraction is obvious enough without overcomplication: a manual F355 GTS in archetypal Ferrari colours, with a traceable Clarkson connection and a story that extends beyond the usual auction catalogue notes.

Details & Specifications

Whether the Clarkson link delivers the extra momentum it lacked in July remains to be seen, but as a specification-led F355 with a clear pop-cultural thread, this GTS should speak to collectors who want more than another red Ferrari in the garage.