Two classic Ferraris from the estate of British collector Richard Colton will be offered at the H&H Classics auction October 14 at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, with proceeds earmarked for England’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Colton’s requested that the money generated by the cars’ sale be used to build a new lifeboat for the volunteer life-saving crews that work the coasts of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
The cars are a short-wheelbase 1960 Ferrari 250 GT and a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4. The 250 GT was the second steel-bodied, right-hand-drive car delivered as one of a pair of SWBs ordered by Col. Ronnie Hoare to launch Maranello Concessionaires, the British importer of Ferraris. The 275 was a Maranello Concessionaires demonstrator and one of 27 such cars sent to the UK.
“We are deeply grateful and humbled by Mr. Colton’s generous gift and his decision to benefit the RNLI in this way,” Guy Rose of the RNLI said in the H&H news release. “Six out of every 10 lifeboat launches are only made possible because of gifts left to us in wills, so they are vital to saving lives at sea. Mr. Colton’s generosity will be felt most by our volunteer crews and the people whose lives they save.”
“These stunning motor cars have been with Richard Colton for 40 years and meant a very great deal to him,” said Simon Hope, chairman of H&H CLassics. “We are absolutely committed to realizing the maximum amount for the cars.”
Also being sold from the Colton collection at the War Museum sale are a Ferrari 550 Maranello, Jaguar E-type “Lightweight Evocation,” and a Jaguar XK120 coupe.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is an on-call, 24-hour lifeboat search-and-rescue and seasonal lifeguard service founded in 1824 and has been credited with saving some 140,000 lives along coastal waters, from beach goers to people working on commercial vessels. It mans more than 230 lifeboat stations.
According to H&H Classics, “Richard Colton was a Northamptonshire-based businessman who had a distinguished career in footwear distribution and who for 40 years collected and actively campaigned sensational classic cars. Described by close friends as ‘a shy and private man,’ he was known to be somewhat nervous of the sea, which may have added to his great respect for the men and women who risk their lives daily around Britain’s coast.”
