Michael Jordan's 1997 Ferrari 550 MaranelloCurated / YouTubeBasketball legend Michael Jordan's famed 1997 Ferrari is coming up for auction in September, and it could fetch an eye-watering price over $1 million.The 1997 Ferrari 550 Maranello is being sold through auction house Joopiter after being discovered by Miami collector John Temerian, the co-founder of a vintage dealership called Curated Vintage Supercars. Curated acquired the iconic 550 Maranello after a decade-long search that saw Jordan's Ferrari take on mythical status.An avid car collector, Jordan was seen frequently driving the 550 Maranello in the 1990s at the peak of his basketball powers. He famously drove the Ferrari out of Chicago's United Center the night his Bulls won their fifth NBA title on June 13, 1997, just over two weeks after Jordan had bought the car from a Ferrari dealership in North Carolina.AdvertisementAdvertisementClad in a striking color called Rosso Barchetta, a shade of red worn by Ferrari's open-top sports cars and race cars in the 1940s and '50s, Jordan's 550 Maranello also inspired the line of Nike Air Jordan XIV shoes that took design cues from the Ferrari's quilted leather and side vents, complete with a Jumpman logo in the outline of a shield reminiscent of Ferrari's crest. Jordan was wearing the shoes when he made his final shot for Chicago in the 1998 Finals to beat the Utah Jazz and secure the Bull's sixth title.In a nutshell, this Ferrari is peak '90s for cars, shoes and sports.A Vanishing FerrariJune 13, 1997: Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls leaves the stadium in his Ferrari after the Bulls win Game 6 of the 1997 NBA Finals at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. The Bulls defeated the Jazz 90-86 to win the series and claim the championship.By itself, that would be enough to garner considerable interest from car collectors and basketball fans, especially those from Chicago. But the story gets better. In Curated's telling, the 550 Maranello dropped out of sight for nearly a quarter of a century. Jordan sold the Ferrari in 2002 to a Chicago collector, and then it was acquired by a private collection in California. With no confirmed public appearances, the car seemed to simply vanish.Temerian made it his cause to find the valuable Ferrari and the search took years before his team found a partial chassis number in an online forum, which allowed Curate to track down the VIN and ultimately find the elusive 550 Maranello in California.AdvertisementAdvertisementThis isn't the first Jordan Ferrari that Curated has tracked down. It found his 1992 Ferrari 512 Testarossa also in California in 2025 on behalf of a collector, though that Ferrari had been sold at a Barrett-Jackson auction in 2010.The 1997 Ferrari 550 Maranello's Place in HistoryMichael Jordan's 1997 Ferrari returned home to Chicago.The 550 Maranello is a notable car in Ferrari's history and was the first front-engine V12 the company had produced since the early 1970s. Styled by Italian design house Pininfarina, the 550 Maranello has 485 horsepower – a heady figure for the '90s – tan leather seats and the chrome Speedline wheels Jordan selected. The 550 Maranello helped key Ferrari's 1990s resurgence under chairman Luca di Montezemolo, who modernized the automaker and revitalized its products after the death of company founder Enzo Ferrari.The Maranello, named after Ferrari's home city, helped put the company on its path to becoming a luxury conglomerate that's publicly traded with a market cap of nearly $80 billion.Interestingly, Jordan's Ferrari isn't particularly remarkable, no more than a typical 550 Maranello of that time. Without the NBA star's connection, it would probably be worth less. The Ferrari has 18,501 miles on it, which is a relatively high number for an exotic sports car. Curated says Jordan put about 6,400 miles on the Ferrari himself, which means despite its lack of publicity, someone has been driving the 550 Maranello over the last 20-plus years. Jordan's other lost Ferrari 512 Testarossa reportedly had more than 54,000 miles on the odometer.AdvertisementAdvertisementJoopiter estimates Jordan's 550 Maranello could get $700,000 to $1.3 million at its sale in September, which is above market for the Ferrari. Hagerty, a Michigan-based insurance and car enthusiast company, estimates a 1997 Ferrari Marenello in Concours (perfect) condition would sell for $298,000, while a similar car in Fair condition (used for daily driving) is worth about $142,000. Jordan's Ferrari probably falls into the Good ($186,000) or Excellent ($249,000) categories, given the number of miles it has.My Take on Michael Jordan's 1997 Ferrari:Jordan's Ferrari with its original plates.Was the 550 Maranello ever lost? Not really. It just appears that the affluent owner of the car for the last two decades didn't exactly advertise that he had it.Still, people like celebrity cars, and clearly there's interest in an iconic Ferrari owned by one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Factor in the Nike shoes as a cultural touchstone and resurgence of 1990s things, and it's likely Jordan's 550 Maranello will fetch some serious coin.This article was originally published on Forbes.com