This Is Rowan Atkinson's Ferrari 456. He Would Have Paid £192,000. Today It's Worth £50,000.
Rowan Atkinson is one of the most knowledgeable and serious car collectors in the world. He owned a McLaren F1 for seventeen years, raced an Aston Martin V8 Zagato at club level, and has made purchasing decisions across a career of collecting that most enthusiasts would never question.
He also bought a Ferrari 456. And if he paid what most 456 buyers paid around £160,000 with 20% added for options, bringing it to approximately £192,000 new in 1996, then the standard version of that car is today worth around £50,000. A nominal loss of £142,000. Adjusted for inflation, the real loss is considerably worse.
The Ferrari 456 is one of the most instructive depreciation stories in the modern Ferrari market. And it comes with an important twist that tells you as much about how to buy correctly as it does about how to lose money.
What the Ferrari 456 Is
The Ferrari 456 was Maranello's return to the front-engine grand tourer format after a two-decade absence. Launched in 1993, it used a 5.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 producing 442 horsepower, at the time the most powerful regular production road car Ferrari had ever built. Pininfarina's bodywork was widely considered among the most elegant designs of the 1990s. The cabin was genuinely luxurious in a way that Ferrari's mid-engine cars could never be.
It was, in short, a remarkable car. The most beautiful Ferrari of its generation by many accounts, paired with one of the finest V12 engines the company had produced.
It was available in two transmissions: a six-speed manual, or a four-speed automatic gearbox, a choice that would, over the following thirty years, divide a single model's market into two completely different investment stories.
The Depreciation That Followed
For most of the 456's secondary market life, both versions drifted down together. The recession of the early 1990s and the general softening of the supercar market hit the 456 hard. Cars that left Maranello at over £100,000 could be found in the mid-2000s for £30,000 to £40,000, a loss of 60% to 70% on original price before inflation adjustment.
The automatic 456 GTA has never really recovered. The average recorded sale price for the 456M GTA across all transactions sits at around £46,000 to £55,000, with low-mileage examples occasionally pushing higher. Poor examples can be found for considerably less, the lowest recorded sale in 2026 was $12,400 for a project car. The four-speed automatic, which was the more popular choice among 456 buyers at the time, has simply never commanded collector interest in the way Ferrari's manual cars do.
This is the version Rowan Atkinson most likely owned, given the era and the Bonhams provenance of his steering wheel described as being from "My First Ferrari", a car he would have sold on in normal Atkinson fashion as he moved through increasingly remarkable machines toward his McLaren F1 and beyond.
At £50,000 today against a £192,000 purchase price in 1996: a loss of £142,000 in nominal terms. Adjusted for inflation, because £192,000 in 1996 is the equivalent of approximately £375,000 today, the real loss is staggering.
Don't buy the wrong cars. Access a 24-page guide of the 100 best investment cars to buy in 2026 under-appreciated, last of their kind, and where the market of buyers is growing.
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