Tag Archives: ford

Escort RS Turbo

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1988 Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 2

Offered by Historics Auctioneers | Ascot Racecourse, U.K. | December 12, 2020

Photo – Historics Auctioneers

In America, there is nothing remotely sexy about the name “Ford Escort.” There are no glorious images of the car on African rallies. No clips of RS-branded hatchbacks racing through the streets. We just got the crappy sedans and hatchbacks.

Not so in the U.K., where cool Escorts appeared as early as the 1960s. The fourth-generation Escort went on sale in 1986 and was produced through 1992. The RS Turbo actually debuted during the previous generation (thus why this is called a Series 2) and continued in production for the duration of the fourth-generation model run.

It is powered by a turbocharged 1.6-liter inline-four rated at 132 horsepower. It was fuel injected, intercooled, and capable of 125 mph and 60 in 8.3 seconds. Not super quick today, but fun and relatively cheap in 1988. This one has 36,000 miles and looks pretty good in black with a sly rear spoiler and driving lights up front. It is expected to sell for between $18,000-$24,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Not sold.

Ford Falcon Clan

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1963 Ford Falcon Clan by Ghia

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Online | September 16-25, 2020

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

Here is another coachbuilt example of something American you wouldn’t expect to have landed in the hands of an Italian design house. Ford and Ghia have partnered on quite a few show cars over the years, and Ford has actually had a stake in Ghia since 1970. But in the 1950s, Ghia was Chrysler’s turf. That all started to change about the time that this fastback Falcon appeared in 1964.

The car was built on a 1963 Ford Falcon Sprint chassis. It retained the Sprint’s 164-horsepower, 4.3-liter (260ci) V8. Ghia added the fastback body style that RM correctly notes as sort of predicting the upcoming Plymouth Barracuda.

It’s a neat-looking thing, but it somehow makes the relatively ho-hum Falcon appear just as ho-hum, yet even more of the period. I would have totally believed this was a factory body style if I didn’t already know it was a one-off. It’s expected to fetch $40,000-$75,000 (in other words, they have no idea what it’s worth). Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $23,100.

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.

July 2020 Auction Highlights

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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.

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

GT350R Prototype

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1965 Shelby GT350R Prototype

Offered by Mecum | Indianapolis, Indiana | July 10-18, 2020

Photo – Mecum

The GT350 was the most badass 1965 Mustang. But how do you take that up a notch? You turn it into a factory race car, of course. That’s what Shelby did with 34-ish of their launch-year GT350s. The R was built for SCCA B-Production competition.

This car is the first GT350R built and was used by Shelby American as a factory race car, racking up 10 B-Production victories in 1965, along with the national championship – the latter with driver Jerry Titus. It was also the test mule for Shelby before they built the 34 customer cars.

Famed drivers Ken Miles, Bob Bondurant, Chuck Cantwell, and Peter Brock all also drove this car in period. It’s been restored and retains a 4.7-liter 289 V8 that made somewhere north of 300 horsepower. Mecum bills this as the “most historically significant Shelby Mustang in the world” which might be a little much. In any case, it’s likely to be among the most expensive. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $3,850,000.

Update: Sold, Mecum Kissimmee 2022, $3,750,000.

Spring 2020 Auction Highlights

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Well, the world is a mess, and most auction houses have postponed or canceled more or less every scheduled auction that was scheduled to be held anytime in late March through… well I don’t even know yet. It’s mid-April as I begin typing this post, and the calendar has more or less cleared out through May and into June (Edit: it took until June to wrap this up).

But! There are still some results to cover, beginning with H&H Auctioneers’ late March sale, which was pretty much the last one to get in before everything went haywire. The top seller was this 1938 Lagonda LG6 Drophead Coupe that brought roughly $237,510 (this was the day that the markets tanked, so the exchange rate was at its lowest in a long time).

Photo – H&H Auctioneers

The Jensen CV8 we featured brought $46,980, and complete results are available here.

RM Sotheby’s shifted their entire Palm Beach sale to online-only, and the top sale ended up being this 1996 Porsche 911 GT2 for $891,000.

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

The Intermeccanica Murena GT was withdrawn from the sale. More results can be found here.

H&H also had a sale in late April, even after things were shutting down. The top sale at this abbreviated sale was this 1967 Ford Mustang GT, and it sold for approximately $75,277.

Photo – H&H Auctioneers

The Austin sedan we featured sold for $10,949. More results are available here.

Osenat was one of the first houses to hold a mid-COVID (“mid” because it ain’t over yet) sale. The Panhard we featured didn’t sell, but the overall top seller was this 1969 Lamborghini Miura P400 S that sold for $950,518. Click here for additional results.

Photo – Osenat

Bonhams held an online sale at the end of May that included a Frazer Nash, an Allard L-Type, and a Lamborghini Urraco that we featured. Only the Lambo sold (for $75,178), and the top sale was for this 1966 Aston Martin DB6 that brought $184,400. Complete results are available here.

Photo – Bonhams

December 2019 Auction Highlights

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Not a lot of action in December, but Mecum did wrap up a sale in Kansas City that saw this 2005 Ford GT sell for $247,500. Gotta love it when the consignor of this car couldn’t be bothered to provide halfway decent photos (these are extremely pixelated). Hopefully, the car fared better during that ownership than the pictures show.

Photo – Mecum

The Graham Series 97 we featured sold for $22,550. More results can be found here.

Bonhams’ Bond Street sale saw the Alfa Romeo we featured fail to sell, though the 550 GTZ Barchetta brought $769,393. The overall top sale was $3,167,224 for this 1961 Aston Martin DB4GT Lightweight. Complete results can be found here.

Photo – Bonhams

Into 2020 we go with Mecum’s Kissimmee sale. No surprises here that the top sale was the Bullitt Mustang for $3,740,000. The Duesenberg we featured from this sale sold for $522,500. Not too far behind that was the Dodge Charger Daytona that sold for $346,500. I think we have to award Most Interesting to the 1968 Challenger 2 land-speed record streamliner that sold for $561,000.

Photo – Mecum

The Chrysler Prowler we featured sold for $27,500. The L88 Corvette did not sell. Complete results can be found here.

BH Auction had its first sale of 2020 in January, and the Lotus 88B we featured is still available. The top sale was this 1987 Ferrari F187 that sold for $1,717,578. More results are available here.

Photo – BH Auction

Finally, we have Bonhams in Scottsdale, where the top reported sale was a Ferrari we featured a while back, a 1951 212 Inter Cabriolet for $1,930,000. Leading the way among our feature cars was the 1901 Winton at $142,800. This 1955 Lancia Aurelia B24S Spider America brought $810,000 and is awarded Most Interesting, mostly because it’s beautiful in this color.

Photo – Bonhams

The other Winton brought $140,000, and the Boyer and a previously-featured Kurtis failed to sell. More results from this sale can be viewed here.

November 2019 Auction Highlights

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We’re starting in November with Silverstone Auctions’ NEC Classic Show sale. This multi-day sale saw this 1965 Aston Martin DB5 bring the biggest bids. It sold for $799,889.

Photo – Silverstone Auctions

The Range Rover limo we featured sold for $42,903. Full results can be found here.

Onward to Osenat, where this 1975 Ferrari Dino 246 GT sold for $264,580. The Ballot sedan we featured brought a strong $79,374. Click here for more results.

Photo – Osenat

At Historics’ November sale, an AC Buckland we featured a few years back found a new home for $55,555. The overall top sale was $309,959 for this 1971 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman. More results are available here.

Photo – Historics at Brooklands

Next up is Brightwells’ Leominster Classic & Vintage sale. The top sale here was an interesting one. It’s a 2011 Morgan Plus Four SuperSports factory race car and the factory transporter, which is a late-80s/early-90s Ford-based RV. Oh, and the trailer. The whole package cost someone $69,861.

Photo – Brightwells

The TVR we featured didn’t sell, but the other five cars did, led by the Bedford pickup for $13,018. Everything else was really cheap, including the $10,848 Scimitar, the $7,232 Commer campervan, the $5,496 Morris pickup, and the $3,037 Rover Scout concept car. The rest of the results can be found here.

Finally, RM Sotheby’s held a sale in Abu Dhabi at the end of November. If you’re imagining a sale chock full of supercars, well, you’re right. In fact, the Pagani Zonda we featured ended up as the top sale at $6,812,500. Not far behind it was Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari F2002 at $6,643,750. The other feature cars that crossed the million-dollar mark were the Zagato Raptor at $1,086,250, the Koenigsegg Agera at $1,356,250, the Ferrari 126 C2 at $2,143,750, and the Ferrari FXX-K at $4,281,250.

We’ll award most interesting to 1999 Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster due to its 1990s poster car-ness. It sold for $169,625.

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

Other Lambo highlights include the “brand new” Diablo VT 6.0 SE that went for $525,000, as well as the Concept S, which failed to sell. Click here for complete results.

October 2019 Auction Highlights, Pt. II

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We pick up in October with Artcurial, where a rough sell-through rate had this backdated 1980 Porsche 911 sell for $158,875 – more than anything else in the sale. The Simca cabriolet we featured brought $32,210. Full results can be found here.

Photo – Artcurial

Next up is Mecum’s Chicago sale. A previously-featured Delahaye failed to sell here again, and the Atterbury truck brought $77,000. The big seller here was this 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 Fastback. It sold for $275,000. More results are available here.

Photo – Mecum

Bonhams’ London-to-Brighton sale is one of our favorites. The 1901 Panhard we featured was the top sale at $573,410. Other sales included the Bartholomew for $25,254, the De Dion Model Y for $74,468, and the MMC for $290,428. We will award Most Interesting to this 1903 Oldsmobile Model R Curved Dash Runabout that sold for $49,149.

Photo – Bonhams

A previously-featured 1899 Star sold for $178,725, along with a Phoenix Tricar at $40,213 and a Bruneau Quadricycle at $53,617. The Peugeot Bebe failed to sell. Complete results can be found here.

Osenat’s October sale saw our featured Flipper fail to find a new home. But that didn’t stop this 1981 Ferrari 308 GTSi from going home with its new owner for $64,791. Click here for more results.

Photo – Osenat

Mecum’s tractor auction in Davenport, Iowa, in November also featured a whole day of classic trucks, the most expensive of which was this 1934 Ford Roadster Pickup at $104,500.

Photo – Mecum

The Fordson prototype brought $90,750, and the Erskine failed to sell. More results are available here.

Bullitt

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1968 Ford Mustang GT

Offered by Mecum | Kissimmee, Florida | January 2-12, 2020

Photo – Mecum

Okay, so this isn’t just any old 1968 Mustang GT. This is the actual car driven by Steve McQueen in the 1968 film Bullitt. It’s the car that was primarily used in the legendary chase scenes around San Francisco. It’s one of the most famous film cars of all time and is one of two Highland Green ’68 Fastbacks used during the film.

Modifications performed by McQueen at the time of filming included the addition of gray Torq Thrust wheels, removal of the emblems and backup lights, and finishing the front grille in black. The look became so iconic that Ford has sold “Bullitt” edition Mustangs since that mimic this very look.

After filming, the car was sold to a Warner Brothers employee, who used it daily. It was later purchased by someone in New Jersey. In 1974, it was purchased by Robert Kiernan, whose wife used it as a daily driver until the clutch went out in 1980. The car was parked with 65,000 miles on it. McQueen tried to buy it back, multiple times, but Kiernan refused. The car bounced around the garages of friends until 2001.

That’s when Ford introduced the Bullitt Edition Mustang. Kiernan and his son decided to get this car running again. It was unveiled to the public again in 2018. A few bits have been replaced, and the 325 horsepower, 6.4-liter V8 has been rebuilt. Otherwise, the car is all original.

This car has the potential to bring a pretty incredible amount of money. Short of James Dean’s “Little Bastard” showing up for sale, it’s hard to imagine a more valuable “pop culture” car. You can check out more about it here and see more from Mecum in Kissimmee here.

Update: Sold $3,740,000.