From Porsche 356 Dempsey to Ferrari Clapton: What Fills Celebrity Garages

© A. Krivonosov

An expensive car alone doesn’t make a celebrity a collector. Patrick Dempsey’s story is far more telling: he spent his paycheck from Can’t Buy Me Love on a 1963 Porsche 356, then went on to race himself. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s bond with cars runs even deeper — he has started “24 Hours of Le Mans” five times, and his renowned collection includes a Ferrari 250 GTO. Porsche, the Le Mans archive and Ferrari itself all confirm this.

Closer Weekly’s top ten is dedicated to collectors like these. Lady Gaga stands out for her love of American classics: her garage is linked to a 1965 Lincoln Continental Convertible, a 1967 Ford Bronco and a 1969 Chevrolet Nova SS. Tim Allen’s taste runs even wider: a rare Group B-era Ford RS200 sits alongside a Shelby Cobra and both a classic and a modern Mustang GT350. ClassicCars has confirmed these cars are part of his collection.

Eric Clapton went further than simply buying production Ferraris. The factory built the SP12 EC specifically for the musician, based on the 458 Italia and drawing inspiration from the 512 BB, a model Clapton had owned before. Even the car’s designation is personal: EC stands for Eric Clapton.

In the original roundup, Patrick Dempsey describes his family’s devotion to the brand this way: “We are a real Porsche family.” The family garage is also said to include a 911 Turbo, a Targa and a Macan.

David Letterman, too, turned out to be involved in the automotive world well beyond an ordinary owner: he remains a co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. His 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso belonged to the talk-show host from 1998 to 2023 — a quarter century, during which the car underwent a thorough restoration.

For James Hetfield, cars became almost a separate art form. The Reclaimed Rust exhibition at the Petersen Automotive Museum brought together ten of his custom vehicles; Metallica has also released its own material about the project.

Jerry Seinfeld is known above all for his devotion to Porsche. In 2016, Gooding & Company auctioned 18 cars from his collection — 16 Porsches and two Volkswagens. The lots that sold brought in $22.2445 million. In the original roundup, Seinfeld explains buying his first Speedster in the simplest terms: “I bought it because I thought it was beautiful.”

Jay Leno represents a different approach — an interest in cars from different eras and schools. Rowan Atkinson, by contrast, is remembered above all for his McLaren F1, which he genuinely drove: the car was wrecked twice, was rebuilt, and in 2015 sold for roughly £8 million — about $10.8 million.

The difference between these garages matters more than their combined value. For Nick Mason, collecting is tied to historic motorsport; for Hetfield, to custom-car culture; for Dempsey, to Porsche and racing; for Clapton, to personal Ferraris. SPEEDME has shown a similar contrast before in the cars of Charles Leclerc, where supercars sit alongside an old FIAT 500, while Philipp Kirkorov’s fleet was built primarily around status and spectacle.