Offered by Gooding & Company | Pebble Beach, California | August 2024
Photo – Gooding & Company
There are a number of modified Ferraris wearing modern Zagato coachwork, but Lamborghini really isn’t a brand associated with that kind of custom coachbuilding. The car you see here exists due to a client request, and when rich people demand something, things like the 5-95 Zagato are born.
It debuted in 2014 at Villa d’Este and is based on the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera. It retains a 5.2-liter V10 that was rated at 562 horsepower in Superleggera spec. Top speed is 200 mph.
Just nine of these were built including one convertible. This is the first time one has come up for sale, and it has 1,100 miles. The pre-sale estimate is $400,000-$600,000. Click here for more info.
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Las Vegas, Nevada | November 17, 2023
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
Mercedes-Benz took quite the hiatus from Formula One, departing in 1955 after murdering a bunch of spectators. They returned as an engine supplier in the 1990s, but didn’t come back with a full team effort until the 2010 season, a year after purchasing reigning champions Brawn GP.
After three somewhat disappointing seasons, they showed up in 2013 with this, the W04 that was to be fielded by drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. It would take them to second in the constructors championship, bettering the fifth they achieved the year prior. It was clear they were onto something, as the following year they would win the championship… and then keep doing so year after year after that.
The W04 is powered by a 2.4-liter V8 with a KERS system that can produce 750 horsepower (or 830 with the KERS enabled). All while revving to a cool 18,000 rpm. This was the last season of F1 to feature V8 engines. The race history for this chassis, #F1W04-04 includes:
2013 Malaysian Grand Prix – 3rd (with Lewis Hamilton)
2013 Chinese Grand Prix – 3rd (with Hamilton)
2013 Hungarian Grand Prix – 1st (with Hamilton)
2013 Belgian Grand Prix – 3rd (with Hamilton)
This chassis was actually used in 14 races that year. It has somehow escaped Mercedes’ hands and has a pre-sale estimate of $10,000,000-$15,000,000. Click here for more info.
Offered by Artcurial | Paris, France | October 22, 2023
Photo – Artcurial
The most amazing thing about this car is that this is what happens when you are a company that builds Lotus Seven replicas and you just keep iterating on the same idea. You can certainly see a little bit of Lotus Seven left in there, but not much.
Donkervoort is a Dutch company that was founded in 1978. Their first car, the S7, was a basic Seven replica. This has been the same basic formula for all of their cars, but things started to get weird when the original D8 went on sale in 1993. By the late 2000s, the design evolved into something more like this. The wild D8 GTO was sold between 2013 and 2022.
It’s powered by a turbocharged 2.5-liter Audi inline-five that was rated at 400 horsepower. It’s a rocket. This one is #7 of 25 Premium Edition cars built – and they all came with black magnesium wheels, carbon bucket seats, carbon doors, and an upgraded exhaust. The estimate is $160,000-$210,000. More info can be found here.
Offered by Bonhams | Goodwood, U.K. | October 17, 2020
Photo – Bonhams
We’ve featured five Ruf automobiles thus far, with this being the sixth. The first five were all Porsche 911-based. This one, however, is based on the 987 Cayman. It’s actually built on a custom platform produced by Multimatic and is not just a modified Cayman. It just looks like a stretched Cayman.
The mid-mounted twin-turbocharged 3.7-liter flat-six makes 766 horsepower in Clubsport trim, 75 more than the base CTR3. Sixty is supposed to arrive in 3.0 seconds, and the top speed is 236 mph.
Only 30 examples of the CTR3 were produced between 2007 and 2012, and just seven examples of the Clubsport were produced since 2012 (and none have been made since 2018). This one should sell for between $780,000-$1,200,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Amelia Island, Florida | March 8-9, 2019
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
It’s become pretty trendy lately for “major” manufacturers to build track-only cars for their wealthier clients to enjoy and pretend they are talented. Ferrari has done it, as has Aston Martin. In 2011, Lotus decided to try to do it in a completely different, balls-to-the-wall kind way.
Before the recession about killed the company and cost the CEO his job, Lotus head man Danny Bahar was flinging out cool concepts left and right with an awesome product roadmap that would’ve made Lotus a sports car contender again. Just like McLaren ended up doing with much better timing (and funding).
Anyway, one of his projects was this, the T125. It’s basically a customer F1 car. Power is from a 640 horsepower, 3.8-liter Cosworth V8. It’s got a bunch of F1 tech inside of it as Lotus was a constructor in F1 at the time. Basically, the car is way too intense for some rando rich guy to hop in and safely pilot around a track.
Despite that, Lotus planned an extravagant launch party in the basement of the Louvre where they told select clients that for about $1 million they’d get the car, a transporter, spares, and a professional driver to teach them how to use it. Then they could go race other people who bought in.
Well it didn’t work. Lotus ended up building as few as two of these, and rumor is not one of them was ever sold as intended. This one has the classic John Player Special livery and can now be yours. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Offered by Bonhams | London, U.K. | December 4, 2016
Photo – Bonhams
Aston Martin decided to celebrate their 50th anniversary of working with famed Italian coachbuilder Zagato by building a limited run of very exclusive cars. The first collaboration 50 years ago was the legendary DB4 GT Zagato. This new car, the V12 Zagato which entered production in 2012, is based on the V12 Vantage that Aston Martin has been building since 2009.
Like the car it is based on, the V12 Zagato is powered by a 6.0-liter V-12 making 510 horsepower. Top speed is 190 mph and 60 arrives in about four seconds. The original intent was to limit production to 150 examples and the weird thing about it is that Aston wanted to take this super limited edition car to the race track. And they did, building two GT3 versions, both of which finished in the top ten at the 2011 24 Hours of the Nurburgring.
But the run of 150 was never meant to be. Only 61 of these were ever built, making them even more instantly collectible than they would’ve been had the run continued longer than the two model years for which they were actually constructed. This is a low mileage, one-owner car from Latvia and should bring between $620,000-$740,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
2013 Aston Martin DB9 Centennial Spyder Concept by Zagato
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Monterey, California | August 15, 2015
Photo – RM Sotheby’s
The title says it all. Aston Martins are some of the prettiest cars on the planet, the DB9 among them, but this is a beautiful take on an already gorgeous car. Sure, it might seem a little droopy-eyed if you look at it too long, but its lines are crisp and it’s sporty and forward-looking. And the current DB9 is a little long in the tooth (it’s been on sale for over 10 years).
It was built by legendary Aston Martin design partner Zagato to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Aston Martin. This car started life as a U.S.-spec ’13 DB9 Volante that was bought off the lot and sent to Zagato by its owner to receive this body work.
The engine is the standard 510 horsepower 5.9-liter V-12. It’s called a Concept because that’s what Zagato chose to call it (plus, it got it on the concept lawn at the Pebble Beach Concours). It’s completely street-able and has about 2,300 miles on it and is a one-owner car. There aren’t too many coachbuilt cars these days and this one is about perfect. Buy it. It will only ever appreciate in value. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Here’s a new super car you may not be familiar with. Monte Carlo Automobile celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2013 and they did so in style, launching a new super car called the Rascasse – named for a corner of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit (it’s toward the end of the lap before getting to the pits).
The engine in this car is a Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph-sourced 5.4-liter V-12 mounted behind the driver. It produces 500 horsepower. The engine car run on gasoline, methanol, or natural gas. The hard top is removable and I honestly think this is a fantastic looking car – especially in roadster/targa/convertible form. And the interior is really cool, too with a Riva/Chris Craft boat theme. If Cary Grant were to cruise around Monte Carlo in a super car, this would be it.
The car was introduced at the inconspicuous Belgrade Motor Show in Serbia in 2013. The company plans to build 15 of them – and that kind of breaks one of the few rules I have about featuring cars on this site: they must be out of production. This one hasn’t really started yet. What you’re buying here is a brand new car that probably hasn’t even been built. It is expected to bring between $210,000-$250,000. Click here for more info and here for the rest of Coys’ lineup.
