The 1957 Ferrari 335S Spider Scaglietti won the 1957 Constructors' World Championship.
What does this mean? Who knows, but the two winners out of this $US35.8 million ($50.5m) sale were Artcurial boss Matty Lamoure, who walked away with a serious commission, and the car's former owner, Alessandro Proto.
Alessandro is one of those Italian characters who makes our Clive Palmer look like a librarian. He claims to be the inspiration for Christian Grey in the 50 Shades of Grey novels but says that unlike CG, AP is not into S&M.
Artcurial says the car was actually owned by French Ferrari collector Pierre Bardinon.
Pierre was in the rich-father business and built the most important Ferrari collection in the world with 70 cars covering Enzo's first 25 years. Pierre also liked a drink and had an equally great collection of Grand Crus. Best of all he built his own 3km racetrack around his house. He died in 2012.
Anyway, Alessandro claims the car's buyer is the Argentinian soccer player Lionel Messi.
Lionel is no shrinking violet himself. Ranked as the world's top player, the greatest of all time and the most highly paid player ($150,000 a day before sponsorships), Lionel is worth about $330m. But he's a mummy's boy at heart or shoulder. He has a tatt of mum Celia's face on his left shoulder.
Back to the Ferrari. This is the car that saw Ferrari win the 1957 Constructors' World Championship. One of four, it came with 290kW, four-cams, double ignition and six Weber carburettors.