He Paid 40 Million for a Ferrari. Here’s Why

Dr Herbert “Herbie” Wertheim has just bought Chassis 0 of the Ferrari Luce for $40 million. That is apparently 36 times the original auction estimate, which sounds completely insane - until you discover that Herbie has done this before.

At the same Monterey Car Week auction one year earlier, he paid $26 million for a Tailor Made Ferrari Daytona SP3, setting the previous record. So who is this man casually spending $66 million on two Ferraris? That is where the story gets interesting.

There is more to this than buying cars

These extraordinary purchases are, in fact, an extension of Wertheim’s philanthropy. The proceeds from these particular Ferrari auctions go to the Ferrari Foundation, supporting educational initiatives. In other words, the spectacular cars are part of something much bigger.

Philanthropy on a very large scale is nothing new to Dr Wertheim. He is an optometrist, inventor, businessman, investor and billionaire who has quietly built an estimated fortune of around $4.6 billion. Despite that, he is probably one of the wealthiest individual investors you have never heard of.

Born in Philadelphia in 1939 to working-class parents, Wertheim later moved with his family to Florida, where they lived above a bakery. He went on to study optometry and, in 1969, made an important discovery about the damage ultraviolet light can cause to the human eye, including its relationship with cataracts.

He subsequently developed a UV-absorbing dye for plastic eyeglass lenses and founded Brain Power Incorporated (BPI), which became a major manufacturer of optical tints and ophthalmic chemicals. Over his career, Wertheim has accumulated more than 100 patents and copyrights.

The world’s most patient investor?

Starting around 1970, Wertheim began putting much of the money he made from his businesses into the stock market. He invested early in companies including Apple and Microsoft and became a major individual shareholder in aerospace and electronics company HEICO.

His investment philosophy is almost comically simple: find exceptional companies, buy them and leave them alone. For decades.

It worked. Today his fortune is estimated at approximately $4.6 billion. There is something rather wonderful about a man becoming enormously wealthy not by frantically trading stocks, but largely by identifying great businesses and having the patience to do almost nothing.

And then giving it away

Wertheim and his family have donated enormous sums to education, healthcare and scientific research. His major gifts include $100 million to Baptist Health South Florida, $50 million to the University of Florida, $50 million to UC Berkeley and $100 million to University of Florida Health.

And there have been many others

Which brings us back to Monterey and that $40 million Ferrari. From a distance, the headline is irresistible: Billionaire pays $40 million for a Ferrari. And yes, he gets a rather extraordinary Ferrari.

But when you understand where the money goes—and what Dr Herbert Wertheim has been doing with his fortune for decades—the story becomes considerably more interesting. He isn’t merely collecting cars. He is collecting them while giving away a fortune he built inventing sunglasses.

I think that’s pretty cool.

Peter Ternström

peter@granturismo.org