USD 55,975 – the price of a meal with Ettore Bugatti and Enzo Ferrari

In 1969, Bill Bowerman, an athletics coach at the University of Oregon, keen to develop a new concept in sports footwear, experimented with his wife’s waffle iron, creating, together with his partner Phil Knight, a new type of sole for running shoes. Nike was born! The first lot of 12 pairs of shoes was delivered (probably as a gift) to US athletes ahead of the 1972 Munich Olympics. Last July, a single pair of these prototype shoes (never worn) crossed the block at Sotheby’s for USD 437,500! A pair of shoes might seem to have nothing in common with cars and the car world, were it not for one consideration: 99% of the value of those shoes was down to their history, and just 1% to the product per se.