June 29 (Bloomberg) -- The Formula One race car that Michael Schumacher drove to victory in five Grands Prix last year fetched $3.3 million at an auction yesterday of historic Ferraris and Maseratis. Collectors spent more than $12.2 million in total.

The sale, organized by Sotheby's Holdings Inc. in Maranello, Italy, was the first hosted by Ferrari SpA. About 62 percent of the lots were sold, the auction house said in a statement. The automaker, which was founded by race-car driver Enzo Ferrari in 1947, is now a unit of Turin-based Fiat SpA.

Ferrari's decision to sell the F2004, in which Schumacher won the Australian, Malaysian, Bahrain, Imola and Spanish Grands Prix last year, marks the first time the company has offered a Formula One car from the past season.

To protect its industrial and technological secrets, the car will have to remain at Ferrari until January 2006. Until then the anonymous buyer will be able to drive it at the Maranello race track. The F2004, the 50th single-seater built by Ferrari for F1, crushed the competition with 16 Grand Prix wins and 14 best laps.

The 1940 8CL Maserati that competed in the Indianapolis 500 race was bought for $2.28 million. A 1946 Maserati 4CL single seater, one of three driven from 1946 to 1948 by race team Scuderia Milano, which included pilot Tazio Nuvolari, sold for $512,000.

The most expensive car of the auction, a 1958 Ferrari 412S once driven by racing stars Phil Hill and Ritchie Ginther and with an estimated value of as much as $12.3 million, failed to sell as the owner didn't accept an $8.6 million offer. The record auction price for a car is the $10.7 million paid for a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO at a Sotheby's Monaco auction in 1990.

Le Mans Trophy

Topping the list of Ferrari memorabilia at the auction, the 1949 Le Mans trophy won by driver Luigi Chinetti, who drove a Ferrari V12 for 23.5 of the race's 24 hours covering 1,970 miles, was bought for $83,000. The Formula One overalls Schumacher wore in races last year fetched $24,900. The carbon-fiber steering wheel of the 2001 Formula One car in which Schumacher won the Australian Grand Prix, raised $83,000.

Ferrari sold 84 percent of the memorabilia Ferrari it put up for auction, for a total of $635,740.

Enzo Ferrari inherited the prancing horse symbol from Italy's World War I ace Francesco Baracca, who shot down 34 enemy planes in his single-seat fighter, firing a machine gun with one hand while controlling his plane with the other.

Prancing Horse

A former Royal Piedmont Cavalry officer, Baracca had a black horse painted on his plane. In 1923, Baracca's parents gave the symbol as a lucky charm to Ferrari, then an Alfa Romeo race-car driver. He went on to found his own company, which has won 14 Formula One constructors' championships -- the last six consecutively, with Schumacher as driver.

In 1997, Ferrari took over Maserati, founded 91 years ago in Modena, Italy, providing it with Ferrari technology in a bid to revive the brand. Maserati, which built 700 cars in 1997, sold 4,600 in 2004, including the Quattroporte driven by singers Bono and Jose Carreras. It is targeting sales of 10,000 vehicles a year by 2007.

Sotheby's, which has its main salesroom in New York, charges 18 percent for the first 200,000 euros ($240,670), and a lower percentage for the amount above that.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mathias Wildt in Milan at mwildt@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 29, 2005 04:35 EDT