Michael Jordan's lost Ferrari 550 Maranello is priced above the model's record
The Ferrari that shaped the Air Jordan XIV spent 24 years hidden in California
Michael Jordan's 1997 Ferrari 550 Maranello has been found, and it is going under the hammer. Chassis 108712 dropped out of sight after he traded it in during December 2002, and Curated co-founder John Temerian tracked it down to a private collection in California earlier this year. Joopiter, the platform Pharrell Williams built for memorabilia, opens online bidding on 15 September and closes it on 30 September.
The public 550 Maranello record is $648,500, and the low estimate beats it
The most any road-going 550 Maranello has made at public auction is $648,500, paid at Broad Arrow in August 2026 for a 1998 car with 848 km on the clock. Joopiter's estimate for Jordan's example starts at $700,000 and runs to $1.3 million, so the bottom of the range is already above the model's ceiling. Ferrari built 3,083 of them between 1996 and 2002, which makes the 550 the least rare modern V12 the company has sold. The bidding runs entirely online, a format that has already produced Ferrari records this year.
Chassis 108712 was delivered on 29 May 1997 wearing MJ 5 plates
Foreign Cars Italia in Greensboro, North Carolina handed the car over on 29 May 1997, finished in Rosso Barchetta over tan leather with chrome Speedline wheels and a gated manual gearbox. The factory warranty card included in the sale carries Jordan's signature and his Durham address. He ran the car on Illinois plates reading MJ 5, drove it to home games, and was photographed sitting in it with a cigar after winning his fifth championship on 13 June 1997.
Jordan stands 1.98 m, so the driver's seat was rebuilt to fit him
The most revealing modification is the one nobody would spot from outside. Jordan is 1.98 m tall and a 550 Maranello is not laid out for that, so the driver's seat sits on extended rails and was given thinner padding to buy him the room. That says more about the relationship than the badge does: this was not a trophy under a cover, it was a car altered until its owner could use it. Athletes who genuinely drive their Ferraris are rarer than the cars, which is why it mattered when Lewis Hamilton, having sold everything he owned, went and bought a dusty F40.
10,300 km under Jordan, then about 850 km a year for 24 years
Jordan covered roughly 10,300 km in five and a half years before selling the 550 through an Illinois dealership on 4 December 2002. The odometer now reads under 30,600 km, so the second owner added around 20,000 km across 24 years, about 850 km a year. Temerian found it by matching a partial chassis number posted years ago on an online forum against Ferrari's original dealer records, bought the car without seeing it, and brought it back to Chicago in May 2026. It still has its Ferrari-branded cassette player.
Tinker Hatfield turned the 550's vents and shield into the Air Jordan XIV
Nike's Tinker Hatfield used this car as the brief for the Air Jordan XIV. The shoe's side ports come from the 550's flank vents, the panelling echoes its quilted leather, and the Jumpman badge was reshaped into a version of Ferrari's prancing horse shield. Jordan wore the XIV for the first time on 14 June 1998, in Game 6 against Utah, which means the last basket he ever scored as a Bull was taken in a shoe drawn from this Ferrari. Joopiter is selling it alongside a jersey from Game 3 of that series. Basketball and bespoke cars have met before, most recently when LeBron James put his own crown where the Maybach V12 badge goes.
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There is a falsifiable claim buried in that estimate, and 30 September settles it. The low end of $700,000 already sits above the $648,500 record, so this car does not need to do well to break it, it only needs to sell. What is actually being tested is the spread between the record and the $1.3 million top end, because all of that is paperwork: a signature on a warranty card, a plate that read MJ 5, and a seat rebuilt for a man who is 1.98 m tall. The Ferrari underneath is one of 3,083.
The more telling detail is who is running the sale. Joopiter is a memorabilia platform, this is the first car it has ever offered, and it is presenting the Ferrari and a game-worn jersey under a single theme. That is not a car auction with a celebrity attached, it is a memorabilia auction that happens to contain a V12. Collector cars have been sliding toward that market for years, priced on the story rather than the machine, and a 550 Maranello asking twice the model's record is where the slide stops being subtle.
