$30m Ferrari Spider man

THE man with the gavel in his hand started the auction at $10 million. The first bid was $16m. I was now confused and worried.

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THE man with the gavel in his hand started the auction at $10 million. The first bid was $16m. I was now confused and worried. I had started Saturday morning with the scrumptious breakfast buffet at Jacks Restaurant and Lounge at the Portola Hotel and Spa complete with bottomless mimosas. This was clearly a mistake given it was now night time.

The Portola is meant to be a short walk from the Monterey Conference Centre where RM Auctions was busy selling 120 cars for $140m. The top 20 sellers were mainly Ferraris and Mercedes with the Jaguar D-type I had my not-very-steady eye on selling for $4.3m.

Now while I did expect lingerie direct mail millionaire Eddie Smith's 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4S NART Spider to sell for around $35m, bidding in $6m lots was a bit different to last week's Pickles prestige car auction at Belmore in Sydney's west where I had been training. But another rag trader, Canada's Lawrence Stroll, wasn't going to let this one of four Spiders go. Larry owns 20 Ferraris, his own race track and $2 billion.

Larry and his business partner, Hong Kong's Silas Chou, are no schmutter schmucks. They introduced Europe to Polo Ralph Lauren, then they introduced the world to Tommy Hilfiger and then took Michael Kors public in December 2011. For those who like me are fashion deadbeats, Michael sells men's and women's clothes that suit (pun intended) the jet-set lifestyle.

Larry and Silas invested about $100m to buy half Kors's company in 2003. When they bought in, the jet-set lifestyle had taken its toll and the firm was close to going belly up.

The Kors float was one of the most successful of the year and since then Larry and Silas have cashed in $3bn worth of shares and still hold 6 per cent. No wonder Larry quickly slapped down $30m to take the Ferrari home.

But the real story here is Eddie Smith. He, his sister and two brothers were put in an orphanage for seven years at the start of the Great Depression when their parents died. His first job was a movie usher, then a cab driver and then working in a mail order firm. He started his own mail order house specialising in stockings for more mature women.

So he did use rags to become rich but he was a great guy. Every Monday, Eddie would get to work early so he could cook 150 biscuits, 17 dozen scrambled eggs, and all the sausages, gravy, grits and fixings for his staff. He would take local kids for joy rides in his Ferraris and the $30m from the sale of the Spider is going to charity.

Eddie bought his first Ferrari, a used 250 California Spider, from his new friend Fezza US importer Luigi Chinetti. His next car was a hard-top 275 GTB Spider. After eight months Luigi rang him and said: "I've talked Mr Ferrari into making some soft-tops; do you want one?" Eddie said: "Yes, but I have the car you sold me." Luigi bought the car back for the same price Eddie paid. Luigi wanted 25 soft-tops; Enzo built only 10.

The first was raced by Denise McCluggage, then driven by Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair. Steve liked the car so much he bought one but it was written off in a rear-end shunt on Wilshire Boulevard. Eddie really loved the Spider. He paid $14,500 (about $120,000 today), picked the metallic blue (soon to be red) Spider up from the factory and drove it almost every day.

It was a big week for RM. Best of Show at Pebble Beach went to Judge Joseph and Margie Cassini's 1934 Packard 1108 Twelve Dietrich Convertible Victoria restored by, you guessed it, RM Auto Restoration.