Bernie Ecclestone is the so-called godfather of Formula 1, having begun his involvement in the sport in the 1950s with the Connaught team, then having managed a young Brit, Stuart Lewis-Evans, and the Austrian ace, Jochen Rindt, who won the 1970 F1 World Championship posthumously, having lost his life at Monza that year.

Thereafter Bernie bought and ran the Brabham team, winning Grands Prix with great drivers such as Carlos Reutemann, Carlos Pace, and Niki Lauda, and F1 World Championships with Nelson Piquet.

Then, as the person in charge of the Formula One Constructors’ Association, he led a process via which, assisted by other senior F1 team owners and team principals such as Enzo Ferrari (Ferrari) and Colin Chapman (Lotus), he began the process of making F1 the global business that it is today. He founded the Formula One Group in 1987, and he continued to control and develop F1’s commercial rights until 2017, by which time he was well into his eighties. He is now 94.

Each of Ecclestone’s 69 cars is unique, having been stored away from the public, in some cases for more than 50 years. Many of the cars have never been seen since Ecclestone purchased them. Highlights include Ferraris raced in Formula 1 Grands Prix by World Champions such as Mike Hawthorn, Niki Lauda, and Michael Schumacher, and Brabhams raced in Formula 1 Grands Prix by Nelson Piquet, Carlos Pace, and Niki Lauda, among them the one-off Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT46B ‘fan car’, which raced only once winning the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp in 1978 by more than half a minute.