For all motorsport enthusiasts, Alain Prost is a legend. Four F1 World Champion titles, and a talent that earned him the nickname “The Professor”. For an F1 fan, one can therefore imagine that the autograph of such an icon has a very great value. But from there to pay 2.5 to 3 million euros, anyway! Of course, it’s not the autograph itself that auction house RM Sotheby’s estimated for such a sum. This is the medium on which the autograph appears.
Prost at the Scuderia
Alain Prost was already three times World Champion when he joined Scuderia Ferrari in 1990. As usual, the driver was offered a company car by the brand, and what better for such a driver than the latest car designed by the alive of Enzo Ferrari, incidentally the fastest car that the world had then known: the Ferrari F40. Prost received his F40 at the very beginning of 1990, but he did not benefit from this gift for very long. He put it up for sale a few months later. Just before, he puts his signature on the roof of the F40, and this autograph is then protected by a thick layer of varnish.
Although altered by time, the signature is still visible today. And what is it really worth? At the same sale, there will be another Ferrari F40. Same age within a few months, same specifications, but a few extra kilometers on the clock (17,250 km, against 4,600 km for the ex-Prost F40). It is estimated between 2.1 and 2.8 million euros. We can therefore say that the signing of our national champion has its share in this difference.