This Ferrari 290MM racer just sold for $22m

This is an old Ferrari. It was built in 1956 as a proper Ferrari factory racer. The first race it ever entered was a little known, easy Sunday drive called the Mille Miglia. It finished second overall.

Indeed, this 1956 Ferrari was driven by the period’s most revered and talented racing drivers. People like Juan Manual Fangio, Phil Hill, Peter Collins, Wolfgang von Trips, and Sir Stirling Moss.

You need to know this information because it helps explain why, over the weekend, this 1956 Ferrari 290MM by Scaglietti sold for a whopping $22,005,000 at RM Sotheby’s LA auction held at the Petersen Automotive Museum. That's about £17m. And you thought you had an expensive night out...

Not only did it race in Italy’s premier endurance race, it also did some things at the Nürburgring, Targa Florio, the Swedish GP, and the 1000km of Buenos Aires. Even Sebring.

The current owner – well, now former owner – bought the 290MM in 2011, and fully restored it to its 1957 Sebring race spec, the last race the car campaigned as an official Scuderia Ferrari car.

Only four 290MMs were ever built, and of the four only three have survived. Helps justify the $22m, no?