1950 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Super Sport Coupe by Touring
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Amelia Island, Florida | March 4, 2023
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
The 2500 was really the best iteration of Alfa’s long-lived 6C line of cars. The 6C 2500 was introduced in 1938 and resumed production after the war, living on until 1952. Various versions were offered, including the Super Sport, which was available from 1939 through 1951.
The main Super Sport model was the coupe, of which 413 were built. This one carries attractive coachwork by Touring. It rides on a shortened 2,700mm wheelbase and was powered by a 2.4-liter inline-six good for 110 horsepower. Top speed was just over 100 mph.
This one led the sad life of many cars of this era: it was acquired in Europe by a US serviceman (awesome) and brought back to the U.S. It eventually worked its way up through tiers of collectors (less awesome) before someone spent half a million and seven years restoring it. It’s too bad regular people can’t buy cars of this caliber like they used to and that some dude who had “three other examples” had to keep hoarding. Click here for more info.
Offered by Artcurial | Paris, France | February 3, 2023
Photo – Artcurial
Rohr was founded by Hans Gustav Rohr, a WWI fighter pilot. Since Germany really wasn’t allowed to be too pro-military after the war, Rohr turned his focus to automobiles beginning in 1927. Their first car, the Type R sold in okay numbers, but the Depression really took the wind out of their sails. Mr. Rohr himself left the company to join Adler in 1931. The final Rohr cars were built in 1935.
This particular prototype started out as a 1933 Rohr Junior, which was actually a Tatra T.57 built under license. It features an air-cooled 1.5-liter flat-four and a body designed by Rohr engineer Karl-Wilhelm Ostwald. It features a streamlined sheet metal body with wood sides and floors.
It was used by the designer’s family for nearly 40 years before being laid up and later discovered by the consignor. It’s in original condition and carries an estimate of $54,000-$87,000. Click here for more info.
Offered by Bonhams | Paris, France | February 2, 2023
Photo – Bonhams
The Grand Sport was the short wheelbase sports car version of Talbot-Lago’s T26, which was their first car introduced after WWII in 1946. The T26 hung around through 1953. This particular Grand Sport, one of just 36 built, was ordered new as a bare chassis by racing driver Andre Chambas.
Chambas designed the body himself in clay and supposedly had it built locally by Contamin, a company that actually built cabins for cranes. Power is from a 4.5-liter inline-six that made around 170 horsepower. Chambas took this car racing, including:
1949 24 Hours of Le Mans – 17th, DNF (with Andre Chambas and Andre Morel)
1950 24 Hours of Le Mans – 13th (with Chambas and Morel)
1951 24 Hours of Le Mans – 17th (with Chambas and Morel)
1952 24 Hours of Le Mans – 9th (with Chambas and Morel)
1953 24 Hours of Le Mans – 52nd, DNF (with Chambas and Charles de Cortanze)
The original coupe body was removed after Le Mans in 1950 and replaced with an open style. This remained on the car until after Le Mans in 1953 (during which the car spun out, and the gearbox was subsequently ruined). The original coupe body was reinstalled at this time.
The car has had quite a few owners in quite a few countries since Chambas sold it in the mid 1950s. It’s a pretty fantastic looking car with a pretty remarkable (all privateer) racing history. Actually, this Talbot has more starts at Le Mans than any other. Pre-sale estimate? $2,150,000-$2,650,000. Click here for more info.
Imagine a bunch of coachbuilt Chevrolet Cruzes running around. Only in Italy would a small city car spawn various different coachbuilt examples. The Fiat 600 was produced (in its Italian run) from 1955 through 1969.
The standard body style was a two-door sedan. It was built under license in other countries, and even as a small MPV called the Multipla. The 600D went on sale in 1962 and featured a 767cc inline-twin that made 32 horsepower.
This Vignale-bodied coupe looks nothing like a standard 600D, but it does retain the rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. It’s covered less than 600 miles since being restored. It is unclear how many Vignale coupes like this were built, but Vignale did build other styles on the 600 platform. The estimate here is $17,000-$21,000. Click here for more info.
Offered by Bonhams | London, U.K. | December 16, 2022
Photo – Bonhams
The Aston Martin Virage debuted in 1989 at a low point for Aston Martin. These were pretty exclusive cars, with about 40 made on average each year. In 1993, the Vantage showed up, wearing pretty much the same bodywork but with a twin-supercharged 5.3-liter V8. Output was rated at 550 horsepower. This thing was a monster in the early 1990s.
Top speed was around 191 mph. The craziest part was this was the base Vantage. There were more extreme versions than this. Meanwhile Ford took over Aston and put the DB7 into production with an inline-six. It’s like it was from a different company than whoever created this thing.
Just 280 examples of the Vantage coupe were produced. A true supercar with grand touring proportions, this Vantage carries an estimate of $75,000-$125,000. Click here for more info.
Offered by Mecum | Kissimmee, Florida | January 4-15, 2022
Photo – Mecum
Maserati’s first Ghibli debuted at the 1966 Turin Motor Show. It was a sleek grand tourer with styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Ghia. Production lasted from 1967 through 1973 when it was kind of replaced by the Khamsin.
Coupes and Spyders were offered with two different engine choices. Initial cars, including this one, were powered by 4.7-liter V8 that was rated at 306 horsepower. This particular car was upgraded to SS specification when it was restored, so it now has the more desirable 4.9-liter powerplant.
There were 1,175 Ghibli coupes produced. This red-over-tan Maserati grand tourer has been with the same owner since just 2014, and it’s now selling at no reserve. 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 Bonhams | Knokke-Heist, Belgium | October 9, 2022
Photo – Bonhams
Jaguar’s XK120/140/150 series of cars are pretty distinctive, and this looks nothing like them. It actually looks like a Vignale-bodied Ferrari from the mid-1950s. But it is actually an XK150 under there.
The XK150 was built from 1957 through 1961 and was available in three factory body styles and with five different engines. This car was originally powered by the base 3.4-liter inline-six that was rated at 190 horsepower. It now has a 3.8-liter unit underhood. It is one of nine supplied as a bare chassis to coachbuilders, and it is one of three bodied by Bertone.
The car was previously on display at the Blackhawk Museum and was restored in 2020. It’s a one-off mid-1950s beauty with Italian style and British underpinnings. It has a pre-sale estimate of $800,000-$1,000,000. Click here for more info.
Offered by Bonhams | Beaulieu, U.K. | September 10, 2022
Photo – Bonhams
The Autech Zagato Stelvio, which was based on an Infiniti M30, was produced in very limited numbers with just 104 built. And yet, it is relatively well known compared to this, the Stelvio’s successor, the Zagato-styled Gavia.
Autech was a tuning subsidiary of Nissan from 1986 to 2022, when it was merged with Nismo. The Gavia project started in 1993 and again was based on the Nissan Leopard, aka the Infiniti M30. Under the hood was the turbocharged 3.0-liter V6 from the 300ZX. Output was rated at 280 horsepower.
The car features the signature Zagato double-bubble roof. It only has Zagato badging on it, and this one was sold new in Japan. It is one of just 16 built. The pre-sale estimate is $35,000-$58,000. Click here for more info.
Offered by Bonhams | Gstaad, Switzerland | July 3, 2022
Photo – Bonhams
This coachbuilt beauty is one of 28 constructed by the Beutler brothers, coachbuilders based in Switzerland. It’s based on a Volkswagen Beetle and was designed and produced before the Karmann Ghia. Basically, Beutler saw the potential for a rear-engine sports car based on VW mechanicals before VW did.
The engine is a 1.2-liter flat-four good for 31 horsepower. So “sports” car is a bit optimistic. But nothing Volkswagen made was “fast” until much later. The engine is mounted out back in a lovely upholstered compartment.
The issue was that this cost more than a Porsche 356 when new (and 2.5 times more than a Beetle). This car was restored over an 11-year period ending in the 2000s. It hasn’t been used or shown much since, and it now carries an estimate of $80,000-$120,000. Click here for more info.