Five reasons why you need this Ferrari

There is a somewhat ironic abundance of rare classic machinery being sold purely for investment purposes at the moment. Especially Ferraris. Enzo didn't build them to be locked away, but to go racing, to be driven by the kind of sympathetic helmsman who feels the need to wear leather driving gloves.

But the notion of a classic car as an investment tool - something to be bought and locked away in a garage only to be sold at an astronomically higher price down the line - has become the norm of late, barring the odd exception.

We'll come back to that, but for now, let us at least indulge in one of these ‘investment-quality' automobiles, an incredibly desirable and really rather excellent 1964 Ferrari 250 LM. Like the one in the picture above. In fact, so much like the one in the picture above, it is the one in the picture above.

It's being offered up at RM Auction's Monterey sale, held between 15-16 August, and it's got our Spidey senses tingling; we suspect this car will go for absolute mega-bucks.

So, here are five iron-clad reasons why you really should somehow find many millions of pounds.

This one is number 19, sold new to ‘casino mogul' and car dealer William Fisk Harrah in July 1964. And because it's one of only 32 Ferrari 250 LMs ever built, it's really, really bloody rare. Which means your considerable investment can only appreciate.

TopGear.com has undergone a few intensive therapy sessions since our herculean effort over the weekend covering the 2014 Le Mans race live, so any mention of La Sarthe brings a shudder to our spines.

But mention must be made about this Ferrari. Well, not the one on sale, but the 250 LM in general: an example was entered by the North American Racing Team and driven by Jochen Rindt and Masten Gregory in the 1965 Le Mans race. And guess what - they won, making it Ferrari's last win at La Sarthe.

Yep, it's a classic Ferrari V12 in operation here, a 3.3-litre unit (or 3285.72cc to be exact) producing 320bhp, with single overhead cams per bank, and two valves per cylinder. It also gets six Weber 38/40 DCN carburetors and is dry sumped. A lovely, lovely thing.

It also weighs just 820kg and is capable of a 178mph top speed.

That's a big tick in the ‘must buy because it's genuine' box. Ferrari Classiche is the company's, erm, classics department, making sure that each car is as good as the day it rolled out of the factory. This car was recently restored to full factory spec, and as such, pleased Maranello's demanding quality. Good.

It was shown at the XIII Palm Beach Cavallino Classic in January this year, where it received the Ferrari Classiche Cup and the award for the most outstanding 12-cylinder Ferrari at the show. Presumably, it did away with the now ubiquitous ‘I'd like to thank god and all my haters' speech, instead giving a little snarl of that V12.

Well, it would be remiss of us to omit the fact that late last year, a Ferrari 250 LM like this one sold for a quite substantial $14.3 million - £9 million - in New York. This one will likely go for similar money. So, erm, it won't be cheap. But just think of it as an investment...