Tom Hartley Junior signs one of the biggest car deals in history after sale of Ecclestone collection

Supercar dealer Tom Hartley Junior has brokered one of the biggest car deals in history after agreeing to sell Bernie Ecclestone’s 69-car collection to Red Bull heir Mark Mateschitz.

The collection – worth an estimated £500m – attracted interest from nation states but was eventually sold to the son of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz.

Ecclestone, the former F1 boss, entrusted Hartley Junior to sell the incredible collection of Grand Prix and Formula 1 cars in December.

It included Ferraris driven by the likes of Hawthorn, Lauda and Schumacher, a pair of pre-war Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union cars, a Vanwall VW10 driven by Sir Stirling Moss, and a string of Brabhams – including the one-off 1978 Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT46B ‘fan car’ – from the time when Ecclestone owned the team.

Writing on Instagram, Hartley Junior said: ‘I think the cat is certainly well and truly out of the bag by now, however, I am pleased to confirm the sale of The Ecclestone Grand Prix Collection.

‘After announcing the collection would be sold in early December, the interest and offers we received from all over the world was unbelievable. 

‘To give you an idea of the level of interest, myself and two of my team were dealing with enquiries until the early hours of the morning throughout the whole of December and January and interest came not just from individuals but also several sovereign wealth funds who saw the collection as so important that they wanted to build respective museums to showcase it.

‘However, we are also pleased to confirm that the entire collection has been sold to a single buyer who has confirmed that he will be keeping the collection together and will in the future be displaying the collection for public viewing.

‘A big thank you goes out to Bernie for the trust he bestowed upon me and my business. He’s the greatest car dealer of all-time and the whole THJ team wanted to repay his trust with a top performance.’

Mateschitz – who owns 49% of Red Bull – has pledged to put the cars on public display.

He told The Daily Mail: ‘I am very pleased that Bernie has placed his trust in me to take care of this historically significant collection.

‘It will be carefully preserved, expanded over the years, and in the near future it will be made accessible to the public at an appropriate location.’

Ecclestone was said to be selling the collection to pay off a £653m settlement he made with HMRC after pleading guilty to fraud. 

He earlier told Telegraph he didn’t want to leave the cars to his wife to sort after his death.

‘All these car dealers would be driving her mad,’ he said.

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