Tag Archives: dorotheum

August 2020 Auction Highlights

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We start near the end of August with Shannons where the Australia-only Statesman sold for $21,486. The top sale was this 1972 Porsche 911E coupe that brought $224,695… which seems like a lot. More results are available here.

Photo – Shannons

Mecum had a sort of Kissimmee bonus sale trying to make up for a bunch of canceled events (hey, you can do anything you want in Florida, pandemic or not). This 2018 Ford GT topped the charts at $935,000.

Photo – Mecum

The Nash Statesman (another Statesman, really?) we featured brought $19,800. Click here for complete results.

Finally, for August, was Dorotheum’s sale in Austria. The top sale here was this 1973 Dino 246 GTS for $521,053. We wrote up a few cars from this one, and the Austro-Adler led the way at $149,515.

Photo – Dorotheum

The Glas 1300 Cabriolet sold for $81,747, and the early BMW brought $23,843. The Tatra went for $20,436, and the Steyr-Fiat brought up the rear at $8,174. Click here for more results.

Another sale, this one in early September, that we featured quite a few lots from was RM’s Auburn sale. Three of those cars were among the top four highest sales: the Duesenberg ($632,500), the Kurtis 500B ($550,000), and the Epperly-Offy ($407,000), but the biggest money was reserved for this 1935 Auburn Eight Supercharged Speedster. It brought $770,000.

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

The other Kurtis, the 500E, sold for $68,200, and the Murena GT went for $41,250, which, for its rarity, seems like a helluva deal. It was actually consigned to their Palm Beach sale, but the entire collection it came from got shifted to this sale instead.

$18,150 would’ve brought home a fairly original Franklin Airman sedan, while a check for $17,600 ended up being good enough for a 1922 Studebaker. The fact that I could’ve had this Chalmers for $10,725 is upsetting. The Moskvitch brought $5,225, and the CitiCar $2,200. Click here for final results.

To wrap up this rundown, we head down the street to Worldwide Auctioneers’ Auburn sale. The only car we featured from this one was the Faraday Future prototype, which appears to have been withdrawn. Womp womp. You can look at more from this sale here.

Tatra 12

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1930 Tatra 12 Convertible

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | August 29, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

The Tatra name first appeared in 1919 as the marque for cars built by an industrial company that built railroad cars and carriages. They had already produced some cars under the NW marque, but the new-and-improved post-WWI Tatras would lead to some impressive pre-and-post-war cars.

The 12 was introduced in 1926 as an evolution of the earlier 11. One big difference was that the 12 had four-wheel brakes. It’s powered by a 1.1-liter flat-twin making 14 horsepower. It was not a sporty machine. But that was not the intent. At this point, the company wanted to move cars people could afford.

This example has been in the same care since 1959 and is largely original aside from a repaint. Only 7,525 examples of the Tatra 12 were produced by the time it was replaced by the Tatra 57 in 1933. This one should sell for between $14,000-$21,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $20,436.

1932 BMW 3/20

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1932 BMW 3/20 AM1

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | August 29, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

In 1904, a car company sprang up in Eisenach, Germany, that sold vehicles under the Dixi brand. In 1928, BMW took over that company. BMW dated back to 1916, but they didn’t produce their first car until after taking over Dixi. The Dixi 3/15 was an Austin Seven built under license, and they were branded as BMWs from 1929 through 1932.

The followup to the Dixi 3/15 was the BMW 3/20. That technically makes this the first BMW car, as the Dixi was not initially a BMW. It still used the Austin engine – a 788cc inline-four making 20 horsepower. The car itself was larger than its predecessor and was built in four versions, with this, the AM1, being the first.

The 3/20 was manufactured between 1932 and 1934. These early BMWs are very rare. Most pre-ware Bimmers offered at auction are just 328s. These are unusual. And interesting. It should bring between $14,000-$21,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $23,843.

Steyr-Fiat

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1964 Steyr-Fiat 1100 D

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | August 29, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

This is a shameless weird-marque grab. I love that the alphabetical list on this site is an amazing collection of different marques, and Steyr-Fiat is a rare one. There isn’t much special about this car other than who made it, and the fact that I turned down featuring a 120-year-old Peugeot to squeeze this in makes me a little naseous.

The Fiat 1100 was a small sedan produced between 1953 and 1969 across a few different models. The base 1100 gave way to the 1100 D in 1962. It was powered by a 50 horsepower, 1.2-liter inline-four.

Steyr, of Austria, produced the 1100 under license, along with some other Fiats. In some cases, they fitted their own engines instead of Fiat’s, along with other mechanical modifications. And they were sold as “Steyr-Fiats” for a period of time (with a unique front badge listing both names). This is the type of car you will only ever find in Central Europe. This one should bring between $7,000-$11,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $8,174.

Glas 1300 GT Cabriolet

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1966 Glas 1300 GT Cabriolet

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | August 29, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

It wasn’t that long ago that we featured a Glas 1300 GT – the coupe version of this car, which was built by Hans Glas GmbH in Dingolfing, Germany, between 1964 and 1967, when BMW took over. Over 5,000 coupes were made (including 1700 GT models), and the convertible is much rarer.

Power is from a 1.3-liter inline-four making 74 horsepower. This car has the rare five-speed gearbox, and the body was designed by Frua. Drop-tops were introduced in 1965, and only 242 examples of the 1300 cabriolet were built.

This car has known history back to new, much of it spent in Germany. The coupe we featured sold for less than $18,000 earlier this year. This car carries an estimate of $71,000-$94,000. No roof? More money. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $81,747.

Austro-Adler

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1912 Austro-Adler 14/17HP

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | August 29, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

I’m sitting here browsing the ultimate automotive encyclopedia. It’s three volumes and weighs a ton. It covers everything. But it does not mention the Austro-Adler. Here is the story: Adler, the German car company, built their first car in 1900. In 1907, a shop opened in Vienna. They were selling Adlers as Austro-Adlers, and that’s because the cars underwent a sort of “final assembly” there to get around import taxes.

It was gone by 1918, and it is unknown how many cars they moved. This is the only known survivor, and it is fantastic. It’s a boxy touring car with a sporty folding windshield and big artillery spoke wheels that are wearing white letter tires.

This model was not an actual Adler model. It is thought that perhaps the Austrians bumped up the power ratings for resale. The prevailing theory is that this is actually an Adler 7/17 model renamed for resale. It’s got an inline-four that I would estimate to be around 1.8-liters in capacity. This unusual and rare tourer is expected to sell for between $59,000-$82,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $149,515.

June/July 2020 Auction Highlights

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Auctions have been pretty few and far between for the last few months, and some traditional tent auctions have turned to offering cars online. One such sale was RM’s Essen sale, which was originally scheduled for late March and shifted to online-only in June. No-sales included the Puch G-Wagen.

The overall top sale was this brand-new 2020 Porsche 935 Martini that brought approximately $1,480,782.

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

The Diablo SE30 we featured brought $259,136, the EuroBrun F1 car $99,952, and the Porsche 912 $61,699. Other sales included the Ginetta G33 for $27,147, the TVR Grantura for $19,743, the Glas 1300 GT for $17,892, the Glas S 1004 for $13,573, and the Neckar for $12,031.

Finally, on the affordable side of things, the Ginetta G20 could’ve been had for $10,180, the Panther Lima for $8,329, and the Arkley SS for a paltry $1,357. Click here for final results.

Mecum held a sale in North Carolina to liquidate a private collection. At least I think it was in North Carolina. There was some weird online bidding stuff too. Pretty confusing. At any rate, this 1969 Dodge Daytona was the top seller at $231,000.

Photo – Mecum

All of our feature cars sold (everything sold), including the Buick GSX for $140,800. The Grand Sport Corvettes brought $68,750 for the convertible and $74,250 for the coupe. Complete results are provided here.

Mecum’s annual Indianapolis sale got shifted to July this year. The overall top seller was the prototype Shelby GT350R we featured. It sold for an impressive $3,850,000. Big-money no-sales included the L88 Corvette convertible race car, the Diedt-Offy Indy car, the Chevelle LS6 convertible, and the Ferrari 275 GTB/4. The high bids for those cars are available at their respective links. Most Interesting is awarded to this 1924 Lincoln Model L Limousine for $24,750 because old Lincolns rock.

Photo – Mecum

Other no-sales included Richard Petty’s ’71 Road Runner, the Dodge Lil Red Express, the Hemi GTX, the ’53 Eldorado, and the obviously-cursed Brumos-Edition 911 GT3. The Kurtis 500H was withdrawn.

On a positive note, a lot of cars estimated to bring lesser amounts found new homes, including the Checker Marathon for $6,600, the Nash Rambler for $24,200, a previously-featured Erskine Panel Truck for $28,600, and the Zimmer Golden Spirit for $24,200. The Cougar Eliminator brought $104,500, the GT350 convertible $1,100,000, a previously-featured Shelby Series 1 prototype $115,500, and the Ferrari F512M $396,000. More results, yes there are more results, are available here.

Dorotheum’s scooter and microcar sale had some interesting vehicles on offer, including this 1963 Peel P50 that sold for $97,265.

Photo – Dorotheum

We featured five cars from this sale. Here’s how they fared:

Complete results are presented here.

Finally, Historics’ Windsorview Lakes sale, where the awesome Spyker LM85 we featured sold for $281,472. The top sale was this 1964 Aston Martin DB5 for $703,682.

Photo – Historics Auctioneers

Our two other feature cars both sold, with the Humber bringing $27,443 and the Brooke Double R $24,648. More results can be found here.

Fram-King Fulda

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1961 Fram-King Fulda

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | July 10, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

History lesson: the Fuldamobil was a microcar built in Fulda, Germany, originally by Elektromaschinenbau Fulda and later by a company whose initials were NWF. The first Fuldamobils went on sale in 1950. Fulda didn’t have the capacity to build that many cars, so they contracted with NWF in 1954 to build them.

NWF built the smaller-engined cars, including some under their own name, while Fulda introduced better versions of theirs. The Fulda S7 debuted in 1957 in Sweden as the Fram-King Fulda, which was built there under license. Power should be from something approximating a 191cc single making just shy of 10 horsepower.

The Fram-King Fulda was built for a short time… until the factory burned down. Production resumed in 1958/1959, and the cars were then sold as the King S-7. So either this car is actually earlier than it is registered as, or it’s really a King (FKF is what many Fuldamobils are known as). Either way, they’re the same car. Click here for more info on this one.

Update: Sold $11,566.

Alta A200

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1968 Alta A200

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | July 10, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

Well, we’ve already covered the early history of the Fuldamobil. But, with the exception of Sweden, we didn’t really touch on the export markets or the license-built versions. It was sold as the Nobel in a few markets and was even produced in India.

Two different companies built them in Greece: Attica and Alta. Alta was based in Athens between 1962 and 1978 and built microcars, motorcycles, and light commercial vehicles. The A200 is powered by a Heinkel 200cc single.

It was the last Fuldamobil variant still in production when it was axed in 1974. This is a nice one, and you can read more about it here. More cars from this sale can be viewed here.

Update: Sold $10,778.

Two Three-Wheelers

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1974 Meister K6

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | July 10, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

Fahrzeugbau Ing. Hans Meister was a car company that operated in Austria between 1962 and 1979. They built a few models over the years, including the GN roadster, the K5, and this, the K6, which was offered between 1969 and 1974.

Power is from a Puch-sourced 49cc two-stroke single rated at 3.5 horsepower. Only 205 examples were built, and it features a fixed roof, two doors, and two seats. Meister only built about 700 cars in total, all of them with three wheels.

You can read more about this one here.

Update: Sold $3,680.

1970 Megu Mopetta

Offered by Dorotheum | Vosendorf, Austria | July 10, 2020

Photo – Dorotheum

Megu, whose official company name began “Megu Metall,” which is kind of awesome, was an Austrian company that started out producing cast metal goods. It was later acquired by Ragnar Mathey who had experience selling scooters, something he would apply to Megu’s future products.

From there, things get kind of cloudy. Production of vehicles is thought to have started in Vienna around 1966 and maybe wrapped up in 1974. The company hung around for decades though, not officially dissolving until 2005. I have no idea what they did for the last 30 years.

The Mopetta was one of a few models offered on Megu’s three-wheeled layout. Power is from a 49cc Puch single good for 3.5 horsepower. You sort of rode it like a moped, steering with handlebars, but it has a windshield, roof, a mirror, and a luggage rack! You can see more about this three-wheeler here and more from this sale here.

Update: Sold $2,365.