Retired Footballer’s Gold Edition Gemballa Mirage GT Up for Auction

One of only three Gold Edition Mirage GT’s will go under the auction hammer this February at the RM Sotheby’s Paris Car Auction. It is expected to fetch between €775,000 – €875,000.

The “one owner” car currently belongs to recently retired professional football player Samuel Eto’o, whose career has spanned over 22 years and includes stints at clubs like Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid along with representing his home country of Cameroon at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

The prized Mirage GT which he is now hoping to sell, originally began life as an already limited production series 2005 Porsche Carrera GT, delivered straight to the factory floor of German autotuner Gemballa.

Gemballa then set to work modifying the Carrera GT to become 1 of 25 Mirage GT’s that it would produce. Not content with a “standard” Mirage GT carbon body-kit conversion, Samuel Eto’o also upgraded to the Gold Edition (1 of 3) which includes bedazzled glitter paint work, various gold accents on the rims, air intakes, wings, mirrors and further golden glimmers throughout the interior of the car.

Performance wise, modifications from Gemballa include a bespoke ram air intake system and upgrades to the exhaust and  engine management electronics to enhance engine output, allowing the Mirage GT to barely break a sweat in the 3.7 seconds it takes to reach 60mph.  

Suspension has also been upgraded, the clutch improved for smoother movement and the centre console redesigned with a stack of modern (for its time) technology, including an infotainment system with sat-nav, designed to track the car’s instantaneous acceleration, lateral acceleration and deceleration.

Having been garaged in Paris (and barely making use of the aforementioned sat-nav system given it has only been driven less than 6,500 km since new), the car was serviced by Porsche in Stuttgart in January of 2020 and by all accounts remains in excellent condition.

For more information on the Paris 2020 auction, visit RM Sothebys.