Veyron Jean-Pierre Wimille Edition

2014 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse Jean-Pierre Wimille Legend Edition

Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 18-20, 2022

Photo – Mecum

Longest. Title. Ever. One thing about supercars is they generally have very few miles on them. This one has about 1,200. Part of that reason is that people who own them generally have a bunch of other cars to drive. The other reason is that they are probably pretty terrible to actually drive.

And because they have that reputation, I guess it could be difficult for automakers to actually sell out a run. I mean, once Bugatti introduces a “more super” version of their supercar, who wants the base model? 2009’s Grand Sport (targa) Veyron begat the Grand Sport Vitesse in 2012. This was essentially the targa version of the coupe’s Super Sport trim.

The Vitesse was sold alongside the regular Grand Sport until 2015. In Vitesse trim, the car is powered by a 1,184-horsepower, quad-turbocharged, 8.0-liter W16. Just 92 examples of the Vitesse were produced, but it seems like so many of them were destined for special editions. There were about 10 special editions, and this one celebrated Jean-Pierre Wimille, who won the 1936 French Grand Prix in a Bugatti Type 57G, in addition to Le Mans in ’37 and ’39.

Just three of these were built. The colors are 1. awesome and 2. a homage to Wimille’s 1937 Le Mans-winning Bugatti “tank.” As dumb as the name is (and the car too I suppose), it’s pretty awesome looking. Click here for more info.

Update: Sold $2,640,000.

Chiron Pur Sport

2021 Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | June 2022

Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions

Another day, another insane supercar. The Chiron was Volkswagen – er, Bugatti’s follow-up to the impossible-to-top Veyron. Well it topped it. And then they went and made it more extreme with a series of special and high-end editions.

The Chiron launched in 2016 and used an updated version of the Veyron’s quad-turbocharged 8.0-lite W16 that in Chiron spec put out 1,479 horsepower. The Pur Sport got a redline increase and a revised gearbox.

Introduced in 2020, the Pur Sport was supposedly limited to 60 units. It is described as a “handling-focused variant” with lightweight components, a fixed rear wing, a pretty crazy wheel design that pulls air into the rear diffuser, and, somehow, stickier tires.

This example is finished in a pretty awesome two-tone color scheme – inside and out. The price is eye watering so far, with the bidding already at $3.7 million at the time of this writing. More can be read about it here.

McLaren Sabre

2020 McLaren Sabre

Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 18-20, 2022

Photo – Mecum

The Sabre is a car that came out of McLaren Special Operations after they asked American VIP customers what kind of car they’d want. Apparently there answer was “a Senna, but less ungainly looking.” This car is Senna based, and it was McLaren’s fastest two-seater ever when all examples were built in 2020.

Power is from a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 that was rated at 824 horsepower. No hybrid assist here. Just pure internal combustion power. Top speed is 218 mph. The cars were only supposed to be for the U.S. market, but apparently a few went overseas. And it’s unclear if they built 15 or 16 of them. This car is #11.

It only has low (100) miles, as many modern supercars do. Which is either because the owner’s have plenty of other cars to drive… or they are horrible to actually drive. Probably both. This might be the first one to come up for public sale, and the price will be into the seven figures. Click here for more info.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $3,500,000.

LFA Nurburgring

2012 Lexus LFA Nurburgring

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | June 2022

Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions

The LFA was the most the most super supercar that Toyota ever built. And the optional Nurbugring package, which was a $70,000 (!) option, made it even super-er. Actually, what it did was add a big rear wing, a front splitter and dive planes, and suspension revisions.

There was also a 10-horsepower bump for the 4.8-liter V10, resulting in 563 horsepower. Lexus only produced 64 examples with this package out of a total run of 500 cars. Available model years ran from 2011 through 2013, and nearly 10 years later there are still rumors of cars yet to be sold, almost certainly because dealers parked them away in their private collections.

However, there really was a sort of “who wants to pay that much for a Lexus” sort of thing that went on when these cars were new. Short-term thinking there, because they cars are hot now. The bidding on this LFA is already over a million dollars with well over a week to go as of this writing. Click here for more info.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $1,225,000.

Spyker C8 Targa

2007 Spyker C8 Laviolette Targa

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | May 2022

Photo – Bring a Trailer

The Spyker C8 is a car that is pretty hard to believe that they actually built. And in some kind of numbers too. The design is outlandish, bordering on over-styled. But they are very striking, and the interiors are some of the best ever bestowed on a supercar.

The C8 went on sale in the early 2000s, and the Laviolette featured a fixed glass roof instead of the earlier Spyder’s retractable soft top. This car is the only Laviolette optioned with a targa roof system with two removable panels. That was $16,000 extra. Also, it is one of six Basic Instinct 2 editions. Which is one of the oddest product tie-ins in a movie ever.

Power is from a 4.2-liter Audi V8 that was rated at 400 horsepower when new. It might not make for the quickest supercar ever, but it’s enough to get the job done and sound good doing it. This car has 4,000 miles and is already bidding past $200,000. Click here for more info.

Update: Sold $505,000.

Ruf Rt 12 R

2015 Ruf Rt 12 R

Offered by Mecum | Indianapolis, Indiana | May 13-21, 2022

Photo – Mecum

The most famous Rufs are based on the Porsche 930, 3.2 Carrera, and the 993. Porsche’s 997 generation of the 911 was produced for the 2005 through 2013 model years, and that’s what this Rt 12 R is based on. Okay, not based on. Don’t forget Rufs are most certainly their own thing and not at all tweaked Porsches. No way.

The Rt 12 was offered between 2004 and 2012. Trim levels included “S” and “R”, with the R being more hardcore. In this spec, the twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter flat-six makes 720 horsepower and 693 lb-ft of torque. The bodywork is also revised and includes a GT3-esque rear wing and attractive center-lock Ruf wheels. Top speed was about 230 mph.

All 997 Turbos had all-wheel drive. The Rt 12 offered rear-wheel drive as an option. Just 13 R-spec Rt 12s were built, and this is one of only two in RWD configuration. This is a pretty crazy yet completely unassuming supercar. Read more about it here.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $1,100,000.

McLaren Senna GTR

2020 McLaren Senna GTR

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | December 2021

Photo – Bring a Trailer Auctions

The Senna is one of McLaren’s “Ultimate Series” cars and is the successor the the P1. It’s basically a track toy for the street, but to make sure you knew that it was intended for the street, McLaren released the track-only GTR variant in 2018 (though the production version would come two years later). Only 75 were to be made. This is car #28.

Power is from a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 rated at 814 horsepower in GTR spec. That’s 25 more than the base car. It’s got a racing gearbox, an adjustable dual-element rear wing, seating for two, and air conditioning. And there are shops that will apparently modify these into “road-legal” cars.

This auction has a few days left, but at the time of this writing, the bidding was already at $1.3 million. So the price is only going to go up. It must be that Gulf livery… Click here for more info.

Update: Sold $1,302,000.

Ascari FGT

1993 Ascari FGT Prototype

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | London, U.K. | November 6, 2021

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

This is something you don’t see every day. Or year. Or decade. Ascari Cars was founded by Klaas Zwart and was named for Alberto Ascari. Based in the U.K., they built very limited-run supercars throughout the late 1990s and 2000s. Their former HQ is now home to the Haas F1 team.

The FGT was their first product. The car was actually designed by Lee Noble independently and sold to Zwart, who founded Ascari around the car and produced it as a race car. The FGT competed in the British GT Championship through 1997, after which Ascari produced 17 road-going versions of the car and called them the Ecosse.

This example is the first FGT built (and likely the only true road-going version) – the initial Noble-produced prototype and what would become the first car to wear the Ascari name. It’s powered by a mid-mounted 6.0-liter Chevrolet V8 making 420 horsepower with an upgraded ECU.

It was apparently found by the current owner in a barn after sitting for 13 years. Lee Noble was called in, and the car was restored to as you see it now. Ascari built less than 100 cars in 15 years, and this is the first one. No pre-sale estimate is yet available, but you can read more about it here and see more from this sale here.

Update: Sold $26,269.

Vanquish Zagato Speedster

2018 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato Speedster Storck Vintage

Offered by Bonhams | Knokke-Heist, Belgium | October 10, 2021

Photo – Bonhams

That’s quite the name, isn’t it? There’s a lot to break down. First, the second-generation Vanquish was produced by Aston Martin by 2012 through 2018. It was replaced by the DBS Superleggera. Then there’s the Zagato aspect. Aston teamed with Zagato for a limited run of Vanquish models at the end of the the gen 2’s run.

There was a one-off Zagato Roadster during the first-generation’s run, but it never reached production. This time around, there were four Zagato models to choose from: coupe, convertible, shooting brake, and Speedster. Only 99 were built of each, except the Speedster. This is #25 of just 28 Speedsters.

Power is from a 5.9-liter V12 rated at 595 horsepower, which was good enough for a sprint to 60 of 3.5 seconds on the way to a 201-mph top end.

Storck Bicycle is a German bicycle company headed by designer Markus Storck. He collaborated with Aston for a limited run of seven Vanquish coupes, and he was brought back for three special Speedsters, including this, the Vintage. It added some special paint and trim touches – and a bit chunk of change to the final price when new.

The car is essentially brand new and is expected to sell for between $1,000,000-$1,500,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Not sold.

Dallara Stradale

2019 Dallara Stradale Berlinetta

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | St. Moritz, Switzerland | September 17, 2021

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

Gian Paolo Dallara has been designing cars since the 1960s. His career highlight is probably the Lamborghini Miura. In 1972 he founded Dallara Automobili, which has been designing racing cars since, including Indy Cars since the late 1990s.

But as has been vogue for the last half decade, boutique firms that specialize in one small segment of automobile design or production have been getting into the specialty car business themselves. This includes design houses like Zagato, Touring, and Italdesign.

The Stradale was Dallara’s first road car, and production started in 2017. They offer four body styles, three of which don’t have any doors. This berlinetta has two gullwing doors. Power is from a turbocharged 2.3-liter inline-four sourced from a Ford Focus RS. Output is 395 horsepower, and 60 arrives in 3.2 seconds. Top speed is 174 mph.

We typically don’t feature cars still in production, but since these boutique cars seem to vanish without a word, we’ll go ahead and get this one on the books. Dallara claims they will build “no more than 600” examples over a five-year run. The price when new was about $236,000, and this one is essentially brand new. You can read more about it here and see more from this sale here.

Update: Not sold.