Two rare Ferraris gifted to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) have funded a new lifeboat station and vital equipment from their sale.
The two cars, donated to the RNLI by businessman and classic car enthusiast Richard Colton in his will after he died in 2015, are a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB and a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4.
The BBC reports the two cars sold at auction for a combined figure approaching £8.6 million, with the 250 GT making £6.6m and the 275 raising £1.93m. They are the most valuable items ever left to the RNLI in a single donation.
A large portion of the money was used to fund new equipment for the existing lifeboat station in Hastings and £3.8m paid for the installation of a new station in Pwllheli, Gwynedd, North Wales. The boathouse is complete and a delayed new lifeboat will arrive in April.
Clive Moore, coxswain and RNLI volunteer at the small Pwllheli site, said the new building “will mark a significant period in the history of the station”.
Moore told the BBC: “I find it remarkable and very humbling that a gentleman who had no seafaring connection should have the desire to support the RNLI through the sale of his treasured cars, and that we should now benefit at Pwllheli as a consequence of his generosity.”
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What I find amazing about this story is a lifeboat station costs 4 million to build, no boat just the station. For the same money you could build 20 houses.
It doesn't. A lifeboat station, or that lifeboat station, cost £2.4 million to build and, at 600m², that's £4.0k/m² which would be about right for that type of building in that location - it has room for two boats (inshore and offshore), actual crew accommodation, workshop, visitor's centre, and gift shop. It also uses PV and ground source heat pumps to keep it off the grid as much as possible, but it has a back-up oil generator too. Plus they have to do groundwork (it's not easy building on sand), a 30 metre long avg 1:9 concrete slipway, landscaping, car park, etc. The remainder went into buying the site in the first place and relocating an existing boat storage area.
The Moelfre station "cost" £10million if talking in global terms, but that's about 10m above sea level, and also included a separate museum and visitors centre (which is well worth a visit if you find yourself on Anglesey (the Lorry Park of the North West as it is soon the become known)).
Fair detail, only it does say 3.8 million in the article. Still seems a heck of lot money, gift shop or not