Alfa Romeo resurrected the 8C nameplate for its return to North America. It was to be a halo car – one that sits atop all others in their model line. The 8C Competizione, the coupe version, was produced in limited numbers between 2007 and 2009. Just 500 were built.
The Spider was even rarer. Only about 329 were built between 2008 and 2010 (even Alfa is not super forthcoming about the exact number, it seems). It shared the coupe’s Ferrari/Maserati 4.7-liter V8 that made 444 horsepower. Styling was done in-house at Alfa Romeo, and the result is stunning. Both the coupe and spider are fantastic-looking cars.
This particular Spider is one of not-all-that-many that were destined for the U.S. It no-sale’d on BaT earlier this year at $289,000. With 10 days left on the auction as of this writing, bidding this time around is already at $260,000. So we’ll see if it surpasses March’s bidding, and if so, if it’s enough to find a new home. Click here for more info.
James Scripps Booth was the heir to a publishing fortune, and he hyphenated his last name when he founded the Scripps-Booth Cyclecar Company. A little bit earlier, he also built Detroit’s first V8 engine, before turning to light cyclecars.
More traditional (but still small) cars followed the 1914 tandem-seat Rocket. By the end of 1917, Scripps-Booth had been taken over by Chevrolet, and General Motors would fold the brand after 1922. The 1917-1919 roadster-only Model G was similar to the well-selling 1915-1916 Model C, except that the fuel tank had been relocated to the rear of the car (among a few other small differences). It was a three seater, with a tiny jump seat facing the front passenger seat.
Power was provided by a 22.5-horsepower inline-four. Alongside the G, the company sold the Model D, which was powered by Detroit’s second-ever production V8 engine. The car here hasn’t been started in a few years, but is interesting and will probably be a good deal. Click here for more info.
Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | November 2022
Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions
Imagine this thing in your rearview mirror on a race track. Pretty scary. Now imagine it sneaking up behind you on the highway. Either is possible: it’s got a license plate mounted out back.
Let’s start at the beginning: the first T70 debuted in the mid-1960s as an open-top sports racing prototype. The Mk II Spyder came later and preceded the Mk 3 coupe. A slightly revised Mk.3B debuted in 1969 and featured front-hinged doors instead of the gullwing doors of the regular Mk 3.
Some of the Mk.3Bs were actually converted to road cars by Sbarro, who would soon after produce a run of replicas. That’s where things start getting confusing. This car was converted to road spec by Sbarro prior to their production of replicas, apparently. Funnily enough, there is another car with this same chassis number floating around (RM sold it in Paris 2014). That auction catalog initially advertised it as a Lola Mk.3B and laid out the early history of this yellow car. Then, shortly before the auction, they added a line that said “After further research it has come to light that this Lola T70 was built by Sbarro; it is very unlikely that this car was ever raced by Chuck Parsons” – which negated the entire history of their car they had written after it.
This car was reconstructed by Lola guru Mac McClendon in the 2010s. It’s powered by a 5.7-liter Chevrolet V8. The comments on the Bring a Trailer auction seem to be full of reading comprehension issues. Yeah, this car has had pretty much everything on it rebuilt or replaced (as has pretty much every race car of this era), but as someone wise said over there “a continuous history as being a particular car is what makes it original… more than the parts currently on the car.” Not to mention, if Mac McClendon says it’s the real deal… who are you to argue.
The other great bit of wisdom from a BaT commenter on thinking about cars like this: “The idea of the car is what matters; each replacement part occupies the same space as the original, and so to our mind the car is original even if none of the component parts are — the car has occupied the same space since 1969, and therefore remains the original car.”
Think about what this represents from 1969. It’s right there with a Miura or McLaren M6GT in terms of late 1960s supercars. It might not be as pretty as a Miura, but it’s more purposeful, and probably faster.
Bidding ends in a few days. You can read more about it here.
Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | November 2022
Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions
Mosler produced the Consulier GTP in the 1980s (it was also known as the Mosler Intruder and Raptor, which were actually around through the 1990s). A new prototype called the MT900 debuted in 2001. It was quite different and modern looking. It never really entered production, but the racing variant was on the track shortly thereafter.
From 2003 through 2010, the MT900S was offered in a limited-production form. Think of it as a competitor to the Saleen S7. A Photon variant would be produced in that time frame as well. The MT900S was available with a few different Corvette-sourced engines. This particular one, which has never been registered with a private owner, is powered by a twin-turbocharged 7.0-liter LS7 V8 that is said to make about 750 horsepower.
This is a real-deal homegrown American supercar. They didn’t build many of them, and they don’t come up for sale often. The bidding on this one ends shortly. Click here for more info.
Another day, another insane supercar. The Chiron was Volkswagen – er, Bugatti’s follow-up to the impossible-to-top Veyron. Well it topped it. And then they went and made it more extreme with a series of special and high-end editions.
The Chiron launched in 2016 and used an updated version of the Veyron’s quad-turbocharged 8.0-lite W16 that in Chiron spec put out 1,479 horsepower. The Pur Sport got a redline increase and a revised gearbox.
Introduced in 2020, the Pur Sport was supposedly limited to 60 units. It is described as a “handling-focused variant” with lightweight components, a fixed rear wing, a pretty crazy wheel design that pulls air into the rear diffuser, and, somehow, stickier tires.
This example is finished in a pretty awesome two-tone color scheme – inside and out. The price is eye watering so far, with the bidding already at $3.7 million at the time of this writing. More can be read about it here.
Toyota’s first production car was called the AA, and it was built in small numbers from 1936 to 1943. In fact, just 1,404 sedans were made. In 1996, still in a weird phase of Japanese-market retro-styled vehicles, Toyota decided to honor the AA with this, the Classic.
Produced just in 1996, the sedan, which actually borrows its rear-wheel-drive frame from the Hilux pickup truck, is powered by a 2.0-liter inline-four that was rated at 96 horsepower. So yeah, it’s bigger than a Nissan Pao but just as quick/slow. All Classics wore the same black/red paint scheme.
They were also only sold in Japan, and just 100 were built. This one was brought to the U.S. earlier this year. Bidding ends today, and the price was approaching $20,000 as of this writing. Click here for more info.
1930 Mercedes-Benz 770K Four-Door Three-Position Cabriolet by Voll & Ruhrbeck
Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | January/February 2022
Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions
The first comment on this auction was to the effect of “This is BaT at a completely different level.” And they ain’t kidding. The 770K was not only extremely exclusive when new, but also ultra rare. And they trade hands (at least publicly) very infrequently. The W07, which was the first generation of the 770 range, went on sale in 1930, making this an early example, in terms of timing. It would be replaced by the W150 in 1938.
They were very expensive cars, intended for high-ranking government officials. The (second-generation) 770K is largely remembered for being the choice cars of Nazi officials. But this car was produced before the Nazis were even in power. And it was sold new to the King of Iraq, remaining in his family until the 1950s.
Power is from a supercharged 7.7-liter inline-eight that made 200 horsepower with the supercharger engaged. Mercedes built 205 examples of the 770 in total, with 117 being the first-gen style. This one was bodied by Voll & Ruhrbeck of Berlin as an imposing, intimidating car. Which was probably the desired effect considering the type of people who owned them.
The car has about 10 days left at auction by the time this posts, and bidding was up to $600,000 at the time of this writing. The cheaper of the two 770Ks we’ve featured in the past sold for $2.5 million, with the other one not selling at a bid of $7 million. Click here for more info.
Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | January 2022
Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions
Kudzu was a racing car constructor that debuted in the late 1980s. The cars competed in IMSA’s GTP prototype category and came from racer Jim Downing’s shop. One of Downing’s race engineers was John Evans, who decided to try his hand at building prototype-style road cars.
Evans Automobiles was founded in the late 1980s as well, and this, I think, was their first offering. It’s based on a Kudzu chassis (or so the name implies) and features composite bodywork. Power is from a mid-mounted 5.7-liter Chevrolet V8 rated at 300 horsepower. Top speed was said to be 178 mph. This was a homegrown American supercar in 1989.
Only two road-going Series I GTs were built, with this being the first, and it remaining with Evans until 2006. There were a few other Evans cars built in the 1990s as well. This is neat stuff – find another one. And it’s no kit car either. It was a ground-up build meant to be a limited-run car. You can read more about it here.
Alvaro Krotz founded the Krotz Manufacturing Company in Springfield, Ohio, in 1903. The company built electric cars under the Krotz Electric brand until the following year. After that venture failed, Krotz relocated to Chicago, where he apparently built this prototype high-wheeler. The story is that he showed it to Sears, who eventually went on to build similar cars. Krotz was also credited with designing the Sears to some degree, but he was gone before production started.
Krotz returned to Ohio, where the Krotz Gas-Electric hybrid was produced in small numbers by the Krotz-Defiance Auto Buggy Company. It would appear that the car above is the only surviving Krotz automobile, and it wasn’t built by either of his to automotive concerns.
The engine is a flat-twin, apparently a Panhard design of unknown displacement or origin. The car has a friction-disc transmission and was restored by its late owner. A note in the photo gallery says that the car can do 50 mph. 50! In this thing. If you’re a big Sears collector (the one or two of you out there) this is sort of a must-have. At any rate, the auction ends tomorrow. Click here for more info.
1935 Duesenberg Model JN Convertible Sedan by Rollston
Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | Online | June 2021
Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions
It seems like it’s been a while since we’ve featured a Model J. This Duesenberg is a late one, and it’s one of 10 “JN” models built in 1935. All 10 were bodied by Rollston, and this car is one of three that was built as a convertible sedan. It was restored in the late 1990s and has spent the last two decades in the collection of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
Power comes from a 420ci Lycoming straight-eight that made 265 horsepower when new. There were a number of four-door convertible body styles on Duesenbergs. The “convertible sedan” features folding B-pillars and a single front windshield. The top boot out back sticks up like a big spoiler in the air.
This is the fifth JN we’ve featured. I believe all still exist, meaning half of them have come up for public sale since 2012. This one has a week left to bid on, and you can find out more about it here.
