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Veyrons.

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2008 Bugatti Veyron 16.4

Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 16-19, 2017

Photo – Mecum

Mecum is hitting a supercar home run this year in Monterey. To wit: they have not one but two Bugatti Veyrons in their catalog (and from what I can tell, that catalog has not yet been finalized). When the Veyron went on sale in 2005, it ushered in a whole new era of the hypercar.

It’s basically just a rocket sled you are allowed to drive on the streets: super fast, fairly heavy, not so nimble. The engine is an 8.0-liter, quad-turbocharged W-16 that makes 987 horsepower. That’s enough to power this all-wheel drive machine to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds on the way to a top speed of 253 mph – which was faster than anything else when introduced. There have been some other pretenders to the World’s Fastest Car throne, but this one is an actual production car, with 450 built between the coupes and convertibles.

This is one of the 300 original coupes the company built between 2005 and 2011, when Coupe production ended (some of those 300 were the “Super Sport” model with more power). Price when new on these was well over $1 million, which is where the price is pretty much guaranteed to remain. See more about this car here and more from Mecum here.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $900,000.

2015 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse

Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 16-19, 2017

Photo – Mecum

This is a slightly sexier Veyron than the base model. Actually, this was sort of the magnum opus of the entire Veyron line. Basically, Bugatti built the base Veyron from 2005-2011, and the Veyron Grand Sport (the convertible) from 2009-2015. They offered a hopped-up coupe (the Super Sport) from 2010-2011 and this, the Grand Sport Vitesse (a convertible with the more powerful Super Sport engine) from 2011-2015. This is one of the last Grand Sport Vitesses brought to the U.S. They also built a bunch of special editions and one-offs as part of these models.

The engine is the same: an 8.0-liter quad-turbocharged W-16, but in Super Sport (or Vitesse) trim, it makes 1,184 horsepower. While the Super Sport could hit 258 mph, you have to settle for 254 in this open-top version. Toupee or not, that kind of wind will suck your hair right off (to be fair, once you remove the top the car is electronically limited to a downright wimpy 229 mph).

Only 150 Grand Sports were built of all types. This one has an awesome color combo of matte black and orange. It’ll bring big bucks – more than the base coupe. Click here for more info and here for the rest of Mecum’s lineup.

Update: Sold $2,350,000.

June 2017 Auction Highlights, Pt. III

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First up in the third auction rundown for June’s sales is Brightwells’ Bicester Classic & Vintage sale. The top sale was this 1976 Ferrari 308 GTB that brought $110,000.

Photo – Brightwells

The Delage we featured didn’t meet its reserve but the Willys-Knight we featured a few months ago did, bringing $11,645 this time around. Check out more from Brightwells here.

The first of Bonhams’ two annual Goodwood sales was held at the end of June. Only one of our feature cars failed to sell (the Bugatti Brescia) while a previously-featured, post-war Talbot-Lago did sell: for $176,371. The other Bugatti we featured sold for $365,332. Top sale went to this 1957 Porsche 356A Carrera Speedster for $1,193,852.

Photo – Bonhams

The Hotchkiss sold for $212,710 while the 1911 Mercedes brought $467,080. Click here for more results from this sale.

Artcurial was the auction house that held this year’s Monaco sale, which had a rough sell-through rate, with three of our featured cars failing to meet their reserves: the Arrows F1 car, the Ruf CTR, and the Bentley Arnage wagon. The top sale was this 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR that brought $2,009,990.

Photo – Artcurial

The two cars from this sale that we featured that did sell were the Lombardi and the OSI Cabriolet. They brought $27,247 each. To see what else sold (or didn’t), click here.

Historics at Brooklands had their July sale and the AC Buckland we featured failed to sell. The top seller was this 1989 Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary that brought $257,580 – almost three times what these cars were bringing 15 years ago.

Photo – Historics at Brooklands

The three other cars we featured from this sale all sold with the Lotus Cortina bringing the most at $56,976. Next was the Jensen GT for $20,194 and the Lambretta Mink one-off prototype brought up the rear with a sale price of $15,866. Click here for complete results from this sale.

Finally, Mecum’s Denver sale, which was actually held in late July. The AMC Rebel Machine we featured brought $50,000 and the overall top seller was this 2016 Ferrari California T Convertible for $165,000. Everything else from this sale can be found here.

Photo – Mecum

GT350H

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1966 Shelby GT350H Fastback

Offered by Mecum | Harrisburg, Pennsylvania | August 3-5, 2017

Photo – Mecum

Hertz is a company that has been involved with automobiles since 1923. At one point they were part of the Yellow Coach company, a manufacturer of buses that eventually became part of GM. In the 1960s, Shelby built a run of special cars for the rental car agency: the GT350H.

The GT350 is powered by a 4.7-liter V-8 that was modified by Shelby to put out 306 horsepower. The Hertz cars were almost all painted black with gold stripes. Dubbed “Rent-a-Racer,” the GT350H could be picked up at your local Hertz counter – if you were a member of their Sports Car Club.

Back in the day, people rented these and entered them in SCCA events. The fun legend is that some would be returned to Hertz with remnants of a welded-in roll cage. There were 999 of these built – and those that hadn’t been totaled in racing accidents (it had to have happened at least once) were returned to Ford after a specified amount of time. Ford removed any go-fast parts aspiring race car drivers may have installed and then flipped the cars onto the public market.

Imagine something like this today. It would never happen. It’s like if you could roll up to Avis and request a new Dodge Demon to take to the drag strip. Society, as litigious as it has become, would never allow for it. This is a piece of motoring history because it is a product of its time. And because of that, it is really, really cool. This well documented, well presented example can be yours. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $120,000.

Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita

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2009 Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita

Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 16-19, 2017

Photo – Mecum

Mecum is flexing their supercar muscle in Monterey this year. In addition to a LaFerrari and some Ford GTs (so far), they have this: a Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita. Swedish Koenigsegg introduced the CCX in 2006. Later on came the CCXR variant, which could run on E85. Rarer still is the Trevita model, which features diamond weave carbon fiber. What does that mean? It means Koenigsegg came up with a new way to make carbon fiber that lets it look really cool with a bare carbon fiber finish that isn’t black.

Powering the CCXR is a 4.8-liter, twin-supercharged V-8 that makes 1,018 horsepower on E85 (it also handles 98 octane pump gas just fine, but the power drops a bit). It has a removable top and is pretty decked out inside, outside, and underneath (as it has a hydraulic lifting system onboard).

Koenigsegg planned to produce three examples of the Trevita, but because making the diamond weave carbon fiber is so difficult, they only managed to complete two cars. Side note, if you are lucky enough to ever own one of these, don’t bump it into anything, as repairs, while no doubt costly, will probably take forever. This is the only U.S.-spec Trevita and it was formerly owned by Floyd Mayweather.

This is a big time supercar. Top speed is 249 mph, with 60 arriving in three seconds. Big time supercars demand big time prices. Mecum is hitting a home run bringing this to auction, now we wait and see what it brings. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $2,600,000.

The Machine

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1970 AMC Rebel Machine

Offered by Mecum | Denver, Colorado | July 20-22, 2017

Photo – Mecum

AMC, whose history is long, tangled, and very interesting (but we won’t go into it here), seemed to build two kinds of cars during the course of their existence: 1. absolute garbage or 2. kind of cool, fast, sporty muscle cars. Even within the Rebel line, which was built between 1967 and 1970, it was a 50/50 split (though in 1967 it was technically not an AMC, but a Rambler… before that marque was merged back into the AMC line).

1970 was the final year for the Rebel and it could be had as a sedan or a two-door hardtop coupe. The base engine was a straight-six and a range of V-8s were offered as well. They also built a top-of-the-line muscle car and they called it “The Machine,” which is a pretty badass, if not lofty, name for a car.

The Machine is powered by a 6.4-liter V-8 making 340 horsepower. That was a decent enough rating, but it was still well short of what the big motors from Ford, GM, and Chrysler were making in 1970. This example is well-optioned and looks very nice. It’s one of 1,000 painted in the iconic red, white, and blue paint scheme – out of a total of 2,326 Rebel Machines built. This is one of the coolest cars AMC ever built and it can be yours! Click here for more info and here for more from Mecum in Denver.

Update: Sold $50,000.

Shelby Series II

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2007 Shelby Series II Prototype

Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 16-19, 2017

Photo – Mecum

Cars bearing Carroll Shelby’s name first appeared in 1962. It’s been more a less a steady stream of different cars since, from his long association with Ford, to his brief stint with Chrysler in the 80s. The thing almost all Shelby cars have in common is that they are hopped up versions of already existing vehicles, from the AC Ace to the Ford Mustang to the Dodge Omni.

But in 1998 Shelby American introduced a car called the Series 1. It was a clean-sheet design and the company built 249 of them in 1999, all fully road legal and ready to go. While the cars were being built, however, Shelby American was acquired by another company (they got everything, including the Series 1, except for the Cobra “continuation” business). When that company went bankrupt on an unrelated matter, Carroll Shelby bought the Series 1 rights back. He built a handful of additional Series 1 cars in 2005.

In 2006, Shelby found some new backers who wanted to put the Series 1 back into production. The car was slightly restyled and rechristened the Series II. Three Series II Prototypes were built, with this being the only one in black (they were largely based on some of the leftover Series 1 cars that Shelby built, as this car was actually constructed in 2005). It is powered by a supercharged 4.0-liter Oldsmobile Aurora V-8 making 550 horsepower. If it sounds weird that you’d built a raw American sports car powered by an engine from an Oldsmobile sedan, remember they used that V-8 in IndyCar, too. $225,000 was to be the going rate, but some federal emissions laws changed and the project was cancelled.

This pristine example has only 22 miles on it. Shelby cars are still super collectible, so if you want one of the newest – and rarest – look no further. Click here for more info and here for more from Mecum in Monterey.

S/N # CSX5505

Update: Not sold, high bid of $400,000.

June 2017 Auction Highlights, Pt. I

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We kick of June’s results with one from May, RM Sotheby’s in Villa Erba, Italy. The top sale was the Talbot-Lago Teardrop Coupe we featured. It sold for $3,757,824. The Talbot-Lago T26 we featured was also a million dollar seller, bringing $1,252,608. Would-be million dollar sales that failed to hit their reserves included the McLaren P1 GTR and a previously-featured, Pebble Beach-winning Mercedes-Benz 680 Torpedo Roadster. We’ll give Most Interesting to this 1935 Bugatti Type 57 Atalante Prototype that brought $3,382,041.

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

Our other four feature cars all sold, with the WRE-Maserati leading the way at $814,195. The Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato brought $513,569 and the Lancia Delta S4 Stradale a similar $551,147. The other Lancia we featured came in at $313,152. Click here for all of the results from this sale.

H&H Classics is holding two sales in June, the first of which was at the National Motorcycle Museum. The Rover we featured sold for $7,464. As is seemingly always the case, the top seller at this H&H sale was an E-Type, specifically a 1971 Jaguar E-Type Series III Coupe for $67,456. Click here for more results.

Photo – H&H Classics

Now we move to Bonhams Greenwich sale where two of our feature cars failed to sell: the Rickenbacker and Pierce-Arrow. The Rambler we featured sold for $73,700. The Bugatti was a strong seller, bringing $676,000, but it wasn’t enough to be the top sale, which went to this 1990 Ferrari F40 for $877,250 (which, compared the recent F40 prices, was kind of a steal). Complete results can be found here.

Photo – Bonhams

Next up, Aguttes in Lyon. The top sale was this 1993 Mercedes-Benz E60 AMG that brought an impressive $156,885.

Photo – Aguttes

The Venturi we featured failed to sell. Check out complete results here.

Finally: Mecum in Portland. The top sale was this 1968 Chevrolet Camaro Yenko for $395,000.

Photo – Mecum

The Plymouth Savoy we featured failed to sell. Mecum’s site has the rest of the results.

Savoy Max Wedge

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1963 Plymouth Savoy Max Wedge

Offered by Mecum | Portland, Oregon | June 16-17, 2017

Photo – Mecum

We’ve featured some of Mopar’s Max Wedge cars in the past and here is another one. The Max Wedge was the pre-Hemi, a 426 cubic inch monster and Chrysler stuffed it into a bunch of family cars to produce some of the best sleepers of the era. In this case, the 7.0-liter V-8 makes 415 horsepower.

The Savoy was produced between 1954 and 1964 in the U.S. and the final generation (1962-1964) was the smallest of Plymouth’s three full-size offerings. It could be had as a two-door coupe, four-door sedan, or four-door wagon. This particular car is not known to have been raced in period, but many were.

It’s mostly original, too, with just 16,000 miles on the odometer – but it has been repainted. Only 18 two-door Max Wedge Savoys were built in 1963. It’s not the most collectible big-engined Mopar, but it’s definitely one of the rarest. It should bring about $150,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $175,000.

May 2017 Auction Highlights, Pt. II

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First up in this rundown of auction results was Osenat’s liquidation of a fire museum. The top sale was this 1929 Delahaye Type 112 Fire Truck for $51,313.

Photo – Osenat

We featured four fire trucks from this sale and three of them failed to sell including the Laffy, Seagrave, and another Delahaye. The American LaFrance did sell, for $9,329. Click here for complete results.

Next, we move to Brightwells Leominster Classic & Vintage cars sale. We featured one car, a Willys-Knight that failed to sell, but it’s already been re-consigned to one of their sales in June! The top sale was actually a tie… between two Jags. Selling for $59,530 each, we first have this 1970 Jaguar E-Type Series 2 4.2 Coupe…

Photo – Brightwells

…And the other was this 1972 Jaguar E-Type Series III Coupe. All of Brightwells’ results can be found here.

Photo – Brightwells

Now we’re on to Mecum’s Spring Classic in Indianapolis. The top sale was a previously featured Porsche 911 GT2 Evo for $1,450,000. Another previously-featured no-sale sold here, Russ Snowberger’s Indy-raced Hupmobile brought $205,000 – which is $105,000 less than it was high-bid to last year. It’s nice to see Mecum move some of their lingering inventory.

There was a previously-featured Duesenberg that failed to sell, J386 (as did this Packard). The Stellite and Reo Speedwagon failed to sell too.

Most Interesting could’ve been one of a hundred cars (including a $17,000 Dodge Viper RT/10) but we’ll give it to this nice 1968 Chevrolet Caprice Estate Wagon that brought $22,500. Love that wood grain!

Photo – Mecum

The Hemi Challenger Coupe we featured brought $145,000. Click here to see everything else from Mecum

Onward, back across the pond, to Belgium and Bonhams’ Spa sale. The Ferrari F355 Challenge we featured sold for $178,426 and a previously-featured Osella F1 car failed to meet its reserve. Top sale? No surprise, a 1958 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster for $1,267,086. Click here for more results.

Photo – Bonhams

And finally, the May sale from Historics at Brooklands. The top sale was the Alvis TE 21 Drophead Coupe we featured for $203,721 – more than double the upper end of its estimate! The Mex 52 and the Talbot both failed to sell. For Most Interesting we are going with this interesting 1983 Land Rover Range Rover “Harrods Edition” by Wood and Pickett that brought $52,395.

Photo – Historics at Brooklands

The super cool Venturi we featured sold for $20,376 – exactly 10% (in GBP) of the price of the Alvis. More results from Historics can be found here.

Reo Speedwagon

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1926 Reo Model F Speedwagon

Offered by Mecum | Indianapolis, Indiana | May 20, 2017

Photo – Mecum

Ransom E. Olds’ second company, REO, went out of business in 1975 after 30 years of producing nothing but trucks. Those trucks were a mainstay of the business since 1910 and have, whether you know it or not, kept the brand famous ever since. The Reo Speedwagon was a series of exceptional trucks that kept the business going for decades.

This Model F is powered by a straight-six that runs the rear wheels through a 3-speed transmission. It rides on 12 spoke wooden wheels with metal rims. There’s brass and chrome spotted throughout and it’s bodied as a transport bus. We love old commercial vehicles because they’ve survived against all odds – this one is no different. If it was used as a bus in the 1920s, it was probably abused and someone took the time to save it.

This is one of just 12 Speedwagons built in 1926. It’s been restored and is stated to be “wonderful for parades,” which is probably true because what else are you going to use it for? Mecum sold this bus in 2015 for $80,000 against an estimate of $75,000-$125,000 prior to any road testing. Now it is apparently running and is estimated to bring between $75,000-$100,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $80,000.