This £25m Ferrari leads a stunning Retromobile auction

Smash open the penny jar and get rummaging down the sofa: this classic Ferrari racer is up for auction on Friday, and you’re going to need at least £22million.

If your collection of coins doesn’t quite stretch to that, though, we have some other suggestions of wondrous stuff to buy from the scores of cars going under the hammer this Friday and Saturday, all at the Artcurial Cars auction at Paris's Retromobile show.

Scroll through to see the 10 cars we think you ought to be bidding on…

Pictures: Artcurial Motorcars/Christian Martin

Estimated to fetch nearly as much as the UK’s record lottery win, we could only ever start with that Ferrari.

Classic Ferraris have a habit of fetching oodles of notes at auction: the pub trivia fans among you might already know the car auction record is held by a Ferrari 250 GTO, as is the highest price ever paid for a car, a princely £35million. This 335 is expected to become the most expensive car ever auctioned in Europe, though.

Why so much? Motorsport provenance, of course. It’s won a Grand Prix and finished second in the Mille Miglia. Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorn and Wolfgang von Trips are just some of the bona fide racing legends who’ve driven it.

It also has a 400bhp V12. And while we’ve not heard it start up, we’d bet all that we own it sounds the absolute nuts. And then put our winnings towards buying it…

Nope, there is no mistyping of this Cali’s estimate. It really is up for Aventador SV money. There is one reason why: between its seats is not a little toggle switch to activate reverse on an automatic gearbox, but a big shiny knob ascending from a click-clack open-gate transmission.

The California was one of the last Ferraris ever to have a manual available, and a mere five people stuck their hand up (or their left leg out) and volunteered to do the gears themselves.

Only two of those were left-hand drive; the car you see here, and one which is apparently tucked away in the Ferrari museum.

So, unless Ferrari performs a technological U-turn, this is one of the last ever Ferraris with a DIY gearbox. But it is also a £300k-plus California. Opinions?

The 959 is from the same era as the Ferrari F40, only its more scientific approach to going fast (as opposed to merely being a terrifying lit firework of a car) has meant it’s not remembered quite as fondly.

Or so it seemed. Expected to fetch over a million quid, it’s hardly any cheaper than a good F40. And there’s plenty of cool stuff to coo over: it was born from Group B rally regulations, and pioneered much of the technology that is now commonplace in hypercars.

And if you like your auction buys with a back story, then step this way: this 959 was ordered by André Malherbe, a Belgian motocross champion. While awaiting delivery, he had an accident competing in the 1988 Paris-Dakar, leaving him paralysed and unable to drive it.

One of his friends was willing to take it on and add it to his bulging car collection, though (how kind), and it’s been meticulously looked after since, covering a smidge over 9,000 miles.

Okay, so sixty grand could buy you an awful lot of sports car. Or two Focus RSs. But don’t underestimate this Mini.

It comes with a mere 2,000 miles on the clock. Good start. It was made for John Cooper itself. Even better. And it has 138bhp, over double its standard output.

Yup. There’s been one heck of a bespoke job done on this to make it exciting enough to satisfy Mr Cooper himself: the engine had a £25,000 rebuild, there’s a straight-cut gearbox, an extra fruity exhaust has been fitted and it even comes with twin fuel tanks.

Inside, there are some grippy Alcantara bucket seats. Given how utterly mad we imagine this thing is to drive, those sound like a very good idea indeed.

Alpine returns in less than two weeks, when we’ll get a first glimpse of the French marque’s new sports car.

It’ll be going some to look cooler or more assertive than this, though. The regular Alpine A310 V6 was a quirky rival to the Porsche 911, and very good it was too. But it was desirable on a whole new level when it went racing.

This particular example raced at the 1977 Le Mans 24 hours, and while it may only have completed 14 of those hours, we reckon that’s ruddy cool nonetheless.

And importantly, it also means you can go racing at the Le Mans classic should you wish. And if you have a spare two hundred grand and a cupboard full of brave pills, you really should wish.

Last weekend saw the Daytona 24 hours preview all the loud and lairy sports cars we’ll see racing at Le Mans in June.

Twenty years ago, this stunning 611bhp Bugatti raced in Daytona, too, ahead of an ill-fated trip to La Sarthe that saw the car fail to start after an accident in qualifying.

It’s all fixed now though, with a new carbonfibre chassis. Those things don’t come cheap. It is also - get this - road registered. How much we want to pop to the shops to buy sweets in a Le Mans-spec Bugatti EB110 simply cannot be quantified.

Retromobile 2016 has another Bugatti for sale, and nope, it’s not a Veyron. Instead, it’s something far, far rarer and potentially more expensive. The price is only available if you have the necessary wealth to be able to ask ‘how much’ and then not have to actually listen to the answer.

The EB112 debuted as a concept car in 1993, but like the Bugatti Galibier saloon of 2009, it never made production. Scribbled by Giugaro, it’s not dissimilar to a Porsche Panamera.

This one, though, is one you can actually drive. A man called Gildo Pallanca Pastor bought the assets and manufactured two of them at the end of the 1990s. And while its Mondeo-like wheel and lack of infotainment won’t give even a base Panamera diesel a fright, owning half of all EB112 production is bound to appeal to someone. You, perhaps…

We’d forgive you for not knowing of the Hyena. But we hope it’s now indelibly etched in your memory, for it is wonderful.

Beneath its lairy, Zagato-penned lines is the drivetrain of a Lancia Delta Integrale. As in, you know, one of the best cars ever. Thanks to extensive use of aluminium and carbonfibre, though, the Hyena is actually 200kg lighter.

So it’s blooming quick, but it’s also fantastically rare: just 24 were built, and this is apparently the only one in Zagato Green.

It’s also a stark reminder of how quickly the car market can change. Just twenty years after this little thing was built, Lancia was rebadging Chrysler Voyagers…

If the previous nine slides have your head in a spin, thinking we’ve launched ourselves into the world of stratospheric pricing, then worry not. Our feet are still on the ground.

The most charming Retromobile lot of them all is this wee little Citroen, not unlike one you may remember from the telly show. Only this one comes with an added extra - a bicycle. Yep, we’re just a beret and a garlic bulb away from a 'French sweeping generalisation' full house.

This little Ami 8 has spent its whole life in the south of France, only venturing out one day a month to go to the cattle market. We imagine each monthly visit ended with a shrug of the shoulders, as yet again no cows that would actually fit in the boot came up for sale…

Not that it would manage to drag one home anyway. It comes with a modest little 602cc two-cylinder engine, but worry not, because if you ever need to get anywhere quickly, its pedal-powered pal is also part of the auction lot. And for the estimate of the Ferrari at the start of this gallery, you could buy them both 3,000 times over.