Lionel Messi has spent two decades as the most decorated player in football history, but the cars linked to his name have built their own kind of legend, one built almost entirely on secondhand reporting rather than the kind of public flexing other athletes go in for. Messi keeps his personal life close, and that habit has left his garage in an odd spot: some of the vehicles most associated with him are also the hardest to actually confirm he owns.
The $35 Million Question: A 1957 Ferrari Racer
The car most often tied to Messi’s name is a 1957 Ferrari 335 S Spider Scaglietti, a genuine period racing chassis that sold at auction for more than $35 million. The story that follows the sale everywhere is that Messi outbid Cristiano Ronaldo for it, a footballing rivalry spilling over into a bidding war. It’s a great story, and it has circulated for years without ever being nailed down by the auction house or either player. Treat it as the automotive world’s most durable rumor rather than a confirmed fact.
A Hypercar That May or May Not Exist in His Garage
The Pagani Zonda Tricolore comes up almost as often. Pagani built only a handful of these, and any real example ranks among the rarest performance cars on the planet. Messi’s name gets attached to it regularly in collector conversations, but the evidence is thin, mostly repetition rather than documentation. It stays on the list because enough people keep bringing it up, not because anyone has produced a title or a delivery photo.
The Cars With Actual Public Ties
A step down from pure rumor, a handful of cars have real photographic evidence behind them. Messi has been photographed with a Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale, and a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG has been linked to his garage for years. A Ferrari F430 Spider rounds out this tier, widely reported as his but without the kind of paper trail that would make it bulletproof. These sit in a more credible middle ground than the Ferrari 335 S or the Zonda, but they still fall short of fully documented ownership.
The Barcelona Years: A Sponsor’s Fleet
Not everything in Messi’s automotive history is exotic. During his years at FC Barcelona, he was a regular face behind the wheel of Audi models supplied through the club’s long-running sponsorship deal, including the Q7, RS6, and A7. Those sightings are some of the best-documented vehicle associations in his entire history, simply because the arrangement was public and photographed constantly by Spanish press covering the club.
Family Life in Miami: SUVs Over Supercars
Since relocating to Inter Miami, reporting around Messi’s daily transportation has shifted toward practicality. A Cadillac Escalade is now frequently described as his preferred family vehicle, and the Range Rover Sport, Range Rover Vogue, and Lexus RX 450h have all appeared in various accounts of his fleet over the years. None of it is flashy, which is arguably the point: a family with young kids in a new country tends to prioritize space and comfort over quarter-mile times.
The One Car With a Real Paper Trail
Of everything linked to Messi, a 2021 Porsche Cayenne GTS Coupe has the strongest documentation. It was reportedly his daily driver during his final season at Barcelona, and it later resurfaced at auction with ownership history that traces back to him specifically. That auction record is more concrete than anything attached to the Ferraris or the Zonda, and it’s worth remembering that the least glamorous car on this list is the one that’s actually been verified.
Why the Mystery Persists
What makes Messi’s garage an interesting case study isn’t the size of it, plenty of athletes own more cars, it’s the gap between what gets repeated and what can actually be proven. A private buyer at a major auction has every incentive to stay anonymous, and Messi’s camp has never made a habit of confirming or denying these stories either way. That leaves fans and collectors filling in the blanks, and a rumor that goes unchallenged long enough eventually gets treated as fact by default. The Cayenne is confirmed. The rest is a mix of credible sourcing, old photographs, and a $35 million story that refuses to die.
Note on images: photos used are stock imagery due to copyright restrictions on personal celebrity photography.
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