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Riley & Scott Mk III

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1999 Riley & Scott Mk III Series 2

Offered by Bring a Trailer | December 2024

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Riley & Scott: Bob Riley and Mark Scott founded their racing car constructor in 1990. They sold out in 1999 to Reynard, who went bankrupt in 2001. Bob Riley resurfaced that same year with Riley Technologies.

Mk III: debuted in 1995 and was the most famous (of only a few) products the company would offer. Iterations of the Mk III would race through 2005. Just 17 of the original Mk III were built from 1995 through 1998. Just four Series 2 cars were built in 1999 before being replaced by the Mk III C.

This car: was acquired new by AutoExe Motorsport in Japan. It’s currently powered by a 6.0-liter Ford V8. The race history for this chassis is below, but after a 1999 Fuji Speedway crash, the car was rebuilt in-house by AutoExe with the goal of being at Le Mans in 2000 as the AutoExe LMP99. That didn’t happen. It later made its way to the U.S., where it is now being offered.

Competition history: (chassis LMP-021)

  • 1999 12 Hours of Sebring – 35th (with Yojiro Terada and Franck Freon)
  • 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans – 40th, DNF (with Terada, Freon, and Robin Donovan)
  • 1999 1000km Fuji – DNF (with Terada, Freon, and Kaichi Satou)

Ahrens-Fox M-X-4

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1926 Ahrens-Fox Model M-X-4

Offered by Bring a Trailer | December 2024

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Ahrens-Fox: Cincinnati-based Ahrens-Fox got their start in 1910 and was named for its founders, John Ahrens and Charles Fox. Their first motorized fire truck was released in 1911, and the company wound up in 1977. Its name is owned and licensed to current products, but none of them are really related to the company that built this. Ahrens-Fox fire trucks from this era are among the most collectible (and easily identifiable).

M-X-4: not really sure when they started/stopped this particular model, but it’s clearly an Ahrens-Fox because of the pumper engine located out front of the truck’s engine. And it’s topped by a chrome ball, which is actually a device that evens out pressure in the hose.

This truck: was used by an Indiana fire department for 46 years and was restored in the 1970s. It’s coming from the remnants of the once-huge McMullen collection, where it’s been since 2001. Power is provided by a massive 16.4-liter inline-six. This is about as good as fire trucks come. More info can be found here.

Tiga GT286

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1986 Tiga-Buick GT286

Offered by Bring a Trailer | December 2024

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Let’s try something a bit different for a bit…

Tiga: founded in 1974 by ex-F1 drivers Tim Schenken and Howden Ganley. It was based in the U.K. and built open-wheel and sports racing prototypes through 1989. A few companies have owned the name since, and “Tiga” has appeared on a few race cars here and there over the years.

GT286: only 10 of these were built for the 1986 season. They were called GT286 if they were built for IMSA Lights and GC286 if they were bought for Group C.

This car: competed in IMSA Lights with owner/driver Charles Morgan, who won his class at Watkins Glen. The chassis was used by various teams (in various configurations) into the 1995 season before being retired. It was restored in the 2000s and is powered by a 4.2-liter Buick V6. It has since competed in events like the Le Mans Classic. Click here for more info.

GT Carbon Series

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2021 Ford GT Carbon Series

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | June 2024

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The second generation of the Ford GT was sold between the 2017 and 2022 model years. If you bought one new, Ford forced you to sign an agreement that you wouldn’t sell it for two years. Or, more so, they put a lien on the car that they would satisfy after exactly two years. If you sold it early, Ford would sue you. The best way around this was to register it to an LLC and then just sell the LLC.

Anyway, this race-bred street car features a whole lot of fancy technology that is backed by a twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 that made 660 horsepower. Various special editions were offered, and this is a “Carbon Series,” which was actually a lightweight package that added gloss carbon-fiber wheels and exterior trim among other things.

It’s unclear how many of these “Carbon Series” cars were built, but Ford planned a run of 1,350 GTs total for this generation. These have been trading hands for over a million since they hit the resale market in 2019, and the bidding on this one is a dollar below that figure as of this writing. Click here for more info.

Renault Type RA Cabriolet

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1927 Renault Type RA Two-Door Cabriolet by Million-Guiet

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | May 2024

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The Type RA was produced by Renault from late 1926 through 1928, when it was replaced by the much-more modern Vivastella. Just 344 15 CV Type RA chassis were built during that time, so it was rare then, much less now.

This car sports one-off coachwork by Million-Guiet and has seating for five: two front seats, a sideways-facing rear seat, and a two-person rumble seat. Power is from a 3.2-liter inline-six.

Displayed at the 1926 Paris and New York auto shows, this car was purchased new by a family in New York, where it remained for 60 years. The next owner restored it and then parked it away. It wasn’t until 2017 when it reemerged. You should check out more on this one here.

280SE 3.5 Cabriolet

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1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SE 3.5 Cabriolet

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | March 2024

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This is among the finest classic Mercedes-Benz products you can buy. It’s also among the classiest. The W111 chassis was designed by Friedrich Geiger and is among three generation of Benzes that fall under the “fintail” category, even though these late coupe/cabriolet variants don’t really have tail fins.

The two-doors came a few years after the sedans and initially launched as the 220SE in 1961. A displacement increase in 1965 brought the 250SE to market, followed by the 2.8-liter 280SE in 1967. All of these cars had straight-six engines. Then, in 1969, Mercedes launched the unnecessarily confusingly named 280SE 3.5, which had a 3.5-liter V8 that made 197 horsepower.

Coupes and convertibles were offered with the V8, and just 1,232 examples of the cabriolet were sold. They have been six-figure cars for some time and continue to creep up. This silver-over-blue example has a little time left to bid, and you can do so here.

Hennessey Venom F5 Roadster

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2023 Hennessey Venom F5 Roadster

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | March 2023

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Well here is a wild top-tier boutique supercar. Hennessey Special Vehicles is an offshoot of the Viper tuning company and they’ve made two supercars since 2010: the Lotus-based Venom GT and the Venom F5, the latter of which is not a stretched Exige but its own thing. It went on sale in 2020, with a roadster arriving for 2022. Production of that targa-top variant is limited to 30 examples. This is the second. We’ll see if they actually end up building all 30.

Power is provided by a twin-turbocharged 6.6-liter V8 that was developed in-house and based on Chevy’s LS series of engines. It is rated at 1,817 horsepower. The coupe variant has a claimed top speed of 301 mph. Which is insane.

This car has under 600 miles, and bidding is over $1.7 million as of this writing. The auction ends today, and you can watch it wind down here.

Acura NSX-T

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2005 Acura NSX-T

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | January 2024

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The first-generation NSX was produced from 1991 through 2005. We’ve featured a launch-year car before, and here is the other end of the spectrum. In 2002, the car received a facelift that saw the switch from pop-up to fixed headlights. There were some other tweaks too, but basically it was refresh to make the car appear more modern, considering it had been unveiled over 15 years earlier.

Power is from a 3.2-liter V6 rated at 290 horsepower. They only built 248 cars for the final model year, 240 of which had manual gearboxes like this one does. Of those, only three of them were finished in Imola Orange Pearl over a black interior, also like this one.

This was not a common color on the NSX (only 49 facelifted cars were painted in it). That, plus the 13,000 miles, is going to make this one big-money NSX. The auction started earlier today (as of this writing) and bidding is already over $130,000 with 12 days left. Click here for more info.

Studebaker Light Six

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1924 Studebaker Model EM Light Six Sedan

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | January 2024

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Studebaker was one of America’s largest carmakers in the 1920s, and in 1924 they ranked #10 in the U.S., with over 105,000 cars sold (meanwhile Ford was a 1.7 million). Their 1924 model line consisted of three six-cylinder cars and one four-cylinder. The sixes were the Big Six, Special Six, and the Light Six.

The Light Six, which went under the “Model EM” name for 1924, was offered from 1918 through 1927, with it going by the “Standard Six” name for the last three model years. Power is from a 3.4-liter inline-six rated at 40 horsepower.

Various body styles were offered. The Light Six isn’t a model that saw a great survival rate – it was the cheapest six they had. And open cars tend to have a better survival rate to begin with. So the fact that this Light Six Sedan is still running is pretty great. There are a few days left to bid here.

991 935

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2019 Porsche 935

Offered by Bring a Trailer | January 2024

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Porsche’s 991 generation of the 911 was exiting production at the end of 2019. Their big send off was the 911 GT2 RS, of which 1,000 were produced between 2018 and 2020. There was a track-only Clubsport variant as well. To take things even further, Porsche unveiled the 991 GT2 RS-based 935 in September 2018.

It’s a track-only car, but it was never homologated for a racing series, meaning you just go rent a track if you want to use it. Just 77 were built, and the name pays homage to the 935 race cars of the 1970s, specifically the 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning 1978 935/78. This is #13 of the 77. Porsche offered a series of classic livery wraps from the factory, but this one wears its bare carbon-fiber finish.

Power is from a twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter flat-six rated at 700 horsepower. This thing is full of race-ready goodness (more of which you can read about here) but it seems unlikely many get used to even a fraction of their potential, as they are doomed to trade hands as collectables. This one is going on five years old and still has less than 600 miles.