Offered by Mecum | Kissimmee, Florida | January 15, 2021
Photo – Mecum
Here’s another “blue chip” collector car. The Ferrari Daytona is one of the last “classic” Ferraris, in my opinion. Before things got all boxy. The 365 GTB/4 was styled by Leonardo Fioravanti at Pininfarina – not really a household name, which is a shame because this car is gorgeous.
Ferrari built 1,383 Daytona coupes between 1968 and 1973, and they also made just 122 Spyders, or “GTS/4”s. Power is from a 347-horsepower, 4.4-liter V12. Top speed is 174 mph. This car has six Weber carburetors, a limited-slip differential, Borrani wire wheels, Ansa exhaust, and air conditioning.
The Daytona Spyder is a million-dollar car every day of the week. The Berlinetta version has been creeping up over the years, and this one is estimated between $650,000-$700,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Offered by Bonhams | Knokke-Heist, Belgium | October 11, 2020
Photo – Bonhams
There has been a long history of Ferrari owners turning their racy Italian thoroughbreds into something a little more… functional, and the converted shooting brake has always been a popular choice. Of course, when Ferrari introduced their own factory version (the FF), people were like “meh.”
The 612 Scaglietti was styled originally by Ken Okuyama at Pininfarina, and I think it has aged very well. This example was sent to Vandenbrink Design in the Netherlands in 2017 where it was converted into a shooting brake with a cool pair of windows over the heads of the rear-seat passengers. I like it.
Power is from a 533 horsepower, 5.7-liter V12, which makes this quite the grocery getter. It should sell for between $180,000-$300,000. That’s quite the range. So in other words, Bonhams has no idea what this will bring. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
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.
Offered by Bonhams | Cheserex, Switzerland | September 20, 2020
Photo – Bonhams
I remember when the 458 Italia launched, and I remember seeing one shortly thereafter at a gas station near Cannes where some girl got out of the passenger side. She slammed the door into a concrete pillar, and the driver just laughed. A different world.
Somehow, Ferrari is already two generations down the road from the 458. The 488 GTB and the F8 Tributo are both fairly derivative of this design, as the F430 was to the 360, and the F355 was to the 348 back in the ’90s. In that regard, the 458 has aged kind of well. It’s not as garish as the later cars. And as all of the models just listed have done, the 458 was littered with special editions, including the 2013-2015 Speciale, which was akin to the F430 Scuderia or the 360 Challenge Stradale.
Differences from the base car include forged wheels, a larger rear spoiler, finned side sills, and re-designed bumpers. The 4.5-liter V8 also got a power bump to 597 horsepower. This example is essentially brand new and is registered in Switzerland. This Bonhams sale has become a supercar highlights sale, but there are no “confiscated dictator” collections this year (sad face). This is like “supercar-lite” when compared to the three Veyrons already announced. The price for this Blu Mirabeau car is estimated at $440,000-$550,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
The auction world started picking up steam in August, with most houses turning to online or partial-in-person sales. First up is Silverstone Auctions, where this 1972 Lamborghini Miura SV sold for $2,503,366.
Photo – Silverstone Auctions
The one-off RA4 Vanguard failed to sell, but the Zenos brought $26,506 and the Benova $41,231. More results are available here.
Next up is Gooding & Company, a sale from which we featured two cars. Both sold. The Duesenberg brought $1,012,000, and the VLF sold for an undisclosed amount, WHICH IS LAME. You should assume they paid $15,000 for it, and then refuse to buy it from (presumably) whoever is about to try and flip it for an insane profit (based off of that $15,000 number). The top sale was this 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB Long Nose for $3,080,000. Go here for more results.
Photo – Gooding & Company
Bonhams’ “Quail” sale was held in Los Angeles this year. The cars with the four largest estimates all failed to sell (including the Offener Tourenwagen), leaving this 1959 Porsche 718 RSK Spyder atop the heap at $2,232,500.
RM’s Monterey sale also shifted to the internet (they called it “Shift/Monterey”). The top sale was a 2001 Ferrari 550 GT1 Prodrive for $4,290,000.
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
To start, a BMW M1 Procar we featured a while back sold here for $913,000. The Duesenberg from this sale sold for $781,000, and the Fiat Wonderful Coupe brought $181,500. All of our feature cars actually sold, which I guess means they were well-selected. The Ferrari 365 GT 2+2 sold for $176,000, the Edwards America convertible $148,500, and I’m pretty sure a previously-featured Fiat 1100 Allemano cabriolet sold for $158,000. Complete results are available here.
H&H had another online sale this month, and two of the cars we featured from last month failed to sell again (see: Willys-Knight and Renault). The good news is that the Hupmobile found a new home for $32,396. The top sale was actually this 2007 Jaguar XKR (with crazy low mileage) for $36,814. More results can be found here.
Photo – H&H Auctioneers
Finally, the FAM cabriolet prototype was withdrawn from the otherwise all-motorcycle Bonhams auction.
Jumping right in, Artcurial’s Monaco sale saw this 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL lead the way at $1,621,037.
Photo – Artcurial
The Venturi we featured sold for $65,501. Other cars that sold can be viewed here.
RM had a “European” online sale a week before having an “American” version, which is kind of weird, but I guess it you’re going to bundle cars together, you might as well do it by where they are located, or at least by what continent they are located on. Anyway, the Inaltera prototype sold for about $440,902. The top sale was $1,685,805 for this alloy-bodied 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB. Final results can be found here.
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
Onward to H&H Classics’ online sale. The two feature cars we had from this sale failed to find new homes and were re-consigned to H&H’s next sale in August (they were this Renault and this Willys). The top sale was this 1965 Alvis TD21 Drophead Coupe that brought $66,032. More results are available here.
Photo – H&H Classics
Bonhams’ MPH online sale is up next. The Lagonda V12 we featured failed to sell, but the Le Zebre went for $12,503. The top sale was this 1927 Bentley 3-Litre Speed Model that sold for $294,205. Click here for additional results.
Photo – Bonhams
And, finally, we have RM’s other online sale, the American one. We only featured one car from this one, the Alfa Romeo RZ, and it sold for $61,600. Top sale honors go to this 2005 Ford GT. All $291,500 of it. Final results can be seen here.
Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Online | August 14-15, 2020
Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
The 365 GT 2+2 (of no relation to the 365 GT4 2+2, which was the first of the “400” line of cars) was Ferrari’s followup to the successful 330 GT 2+2. Introduced in 1967, the 365 GT 2+2 would also be relatively successful, with Ferrari building 809 examples through 1971. In Ferrari-speak, this means they were churning them out.
Styling was by Pininfarina, and the car has a faint pretty strong 500 Superfast look to it. Power is from a Colombo V12 – the 4.4-liter engine put out 320 horsepower. They did build 14 drop-top versions, the 365 California. But they cost 10 times as much as one of these.
That’s right, this car is one of the least expensive entry points into classic Ferrari ownership (and by classic, I mean before everything got all boxy). The estimate on this car is $150,000-$180,000. Not bad for a 60s-era Ferrari. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.
Offered by Mecum | Indianapolis, Indiana | July 10-18, 2020
Photo – Mecum
The 275 is the best classic Ferrari. It replaced the 250 series and was a huge leap forward. It was offered between 1964 and 1968, originally in 275 GTB form, which included a 280 horsepower, 3.3-liter V12.
In 1966, they updated the car to 275 GTB/4 specification, which meant that the 3.3-liter V12 now had four overhead camshafts, instead of two. That upgrade from SOHC to DOHC bumped power to 300 horses. The GTB/4 was also the basis for the legendary N.A.R.T. Spider.
This car is said to be unrestored and original apart from a 1970s repaint in Grigio Mahmoud. Only 330 examples of the GTB/4 were produced, and they’ve been seven-figure cars for some time now. You can read more about this one here and see more from Mecum here.
Offered by Mecum | Indianapolis, Indiana | July 10-18, 2020
Photo – Mecum
The F512 M was the final version of Ferrari’s iconic Testarossa, which was actually first introduced for the 1984 model year. It is one of the most mass-produced Ferraris, and, at the time, it was the second-most-produced Ferrari after the 308 series.
In 1991, the original Testarossa was replaced by the 512 TR, which is among my favorite Ferrari road cars. In 1994, that car was supplanted by the F512 M, which was still powered by a 4.9-liter flat-12, capable here of 440 horsepower. The styling changes are the biggest giveaway. The pop-up headlights were gone, and the car was stuck with these ugly wheels.
Only 501 examples were produced, making it the rarest of the three Testarossa derivatives by some margin. Only 75 were built for the U.S. market. You can read more about this one here, and see more from Mecum here.
A 237 horsepower, 3.0-liter V12 drives this long-wheelbase car. But none of this is the story here. It’s the fact that this is a police car. And was when it was new. But how? Well, the story is that Armando Spatafora (an Italian cop) was dispatched to a high-performance driving program alongside three other officers.
After he completed the course, he was given this car, siren and all. Ferrari actually built a second example, but it was destroyed after only a few weeks on the job. This one remained with the Polizia for six years. It’s never been restored, just preserved by a series of owners. It’s possibly the coolest 250 GTE there is. You can read more about it here.
