Tag Archives: sports cars

Lamborghini 5-95 Zagato

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2013 Lamborghini 5-95 Zagato

Offered by Gooding & Company | Pebble Beach, California | August 2024

Photo – Gooding & Company

There are a number of modified Ferraris wearing modern Zagato coachwork, but Lamborghini really isn’t a brand associated with that kind of custom coachbuilding. The car you see here exists due to a client request, and when rich people demand something, things like the 5-95 Zagato are born.

It debuted in 2014 at Villa d’Este and is based on the Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera. It retains a 5.2-liter V10 that was rated at 562 horsepower in Superleggera spec. Top speed is 200 mph.

Just nine of these were built including one convertible. This is the first time one has come up for sale, and it has 1,100 miles. The pre-sale estimate is $400,000-$600,000. Click here for more info.

Aston V12 Speedster

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2021 Aston Martin V12 Speedster

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Munich, Germany | November 2024

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

Aston Martin loves them some special editions of their popular cars. In this case, the base car was the current generation of the Vantage, but with the twin-turbocharged 5.2-liter V12 from the DBS Superleggera stuffed under the front hood (this also necessitated the use of, basically, the DBS’s front clip to accommodate the engine). Remember, this car came out before the V12 Vantage debuted.

Output was rated at 690 horsepower, which is about 25 less than the DBS. The styling was inspired by the DBR1 that won Le Mans in 1959. It’s a two-seater with no windscreens or top, but it does have two little pods behind the headrests to store helmets.

Just 88 were built, and this car is #61. It has an estimate of $850,000-$1,150,000. More info can be found here.

GT Carbon Series

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2021 Ford GT Carbon Series

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | June 2024

Photo – Bring a Trailer

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.

TVR T350c

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2001 TVR T350c

Offered by Iconic Auctioneers | Northamptonshire, U.K. | May 2024

Photo – Iconic Auctioneers

The T350 was the final model introduced by TVR before Peter Wheeler sold the company to Russian Nikolay Smolensky. It went on sale in 2002 and was sold alongside the car it was based on, the Tamora, until 2006.

Two variants were offered, the T350c (coupe) or the T350t (targa). Power is provided by a 3.6-liter inline-six that was rated at 350 horsepower. It could hit 60 in 4.4 seconds and topped out at around 190 mph.

Just 460 of these were produced (390 of which were coupes), and they were really the last of the TVR models. Only about 215 cars would be produced after the T350 ended production. This was the first T350 built and was used as a motor show display car, a press car, and TVR’s own car for three years before being sold. It now has an estimate of $37,000-$44,000. Click here for more info.

TVR T440R

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2002 TVR T440R

Offered by Iconic Auctioneers | Northamptonshire, England | May 2024

Photo – Iconic Auctioneers

Peter Wheeler bought TVR in 1981 and transitioned the company from wedge-shaped sports cars into a company producing cars that reflected the era… and an era of that no one really saw coming. Cars of the early 90s begat some wild supercars by the year 2000.

The T440R was the second of two prototypes of a car that TVR hoped to homologate so they could race it at Le Mans. The first prototype was destroyed by the factory, leaving this as the sole example. It was initially powered by a 440-horsepower engine (hence the name) but has been restored with a 4.4-liter inline-six.

This car is a good representation of the final stretch of the Wheeler era at TVR: aspirational, wild, and rare. It now has an estimate of $240,000-$285,000. More info can be found here.

Touring Sciadipersia Cabriolet

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2015 Touring Sciadipersia Cabriolet

Offered by Bonhams | Monaco | May 2024

Photo – Bonhams

Much like the coupe version of this car, you can really see the Maserati influence in this car. Well, not really influence, I guess. The car is based on a Maserati GranCabriolet. A 2015 example, specifically.

But the conversion performed by Carrozzeria Touring was not performed until 2020. The car retains the underlying Maserati 4.7-liter V8 that was rated at 454 horsepower. The Touring conversion was mostly limited to exterior styling inspired by the three Touring-bodied Maserati 3500 GTs built for the Shah of Iran (Persia).

Just 14 of these convertibles were produced, with this Belgium-based car having covered just 135 miles since completion. It now has an estimate of $380,000-$490,000. Click here for more info.

Bentley Bacalar

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2022 Bentley Bacalar Roadster

Offered by Mecum | Indianapolis, Indiana | May 2024

Photo – Mecum

The first generation of the Bentley Continental GT entered production in 2003. The original engine was Bentley’s kind of insane W12 powerplant. A V8 joined the lineup for the second generation, and both engines carried over to the third gen, which debuted in 2017. Bentley also announced that the W12 would cease production after 2024.

Bentley had some special editions of the Continental GT ready to celebrate, but perhaps the biggest celebration would be this car: the limited-production Bacalar, which is a coachbuilt special built by Mulliner. It retains the 650-horsepower, twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter W12 of the Continental GT it is based upon.

Just 12 of these were built, and this is the final one. The car does not have a roof, and it’s not legal in the U.S. This one is here on a “show or display” exemption and will cost its next owner between $2,200,000-$2,700,000. Click here for more info.

NSX-R

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1996 Honda NSX-R

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Coral Gables, Florida | March 2024

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

The Honda NSX, sold in the U.S. as an Acura, went on sale for the 1991 model year. It famously had Ayrton Senna as one of its development drivers. It didn’t take long for Honda to want to up the ante a bit over the standard road car.

One year, to be exact, before they brought out the NSX-R, a hardcore version of the NSX. Weight was the name of the game, and they stripped 265 pounds out of the car via the sound deadening, A/C, stereo, and traction control. It got a competition suspension, a revised final drive ratio, and a balanced crankshaft.

Otherwise, the 3.0-liter V6 was unchanged. In manual-transmission setup it made 270 horsepower. Production ended in late 1995, with this being among the last of the 483 units built. All were badged as Hondas, and none were sold new in the U.S. This car has less than 12,000 miles and has an estimate of $450,000-$550,000. Click here for more info.

Acura NSX-T

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2005 Acura NSX-T

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | January 2024

Photo – Bring a Trailer

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.

430 Scuderia

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2008 Ferrari 430 Scuderia

Offered by Bring a Trailer Auctions | Online | December 2024

Photo – Bring a Trailer

Ferrari’s F430 was the follow up to the 360 Modena. The Modena had a limited-edition track-focused variant called the Challenge Stradale, and for the F430 generation, that track-focused car was called the 430 Scuderia. That’s right, they dropped the “F” for some reason.

In Scuderia trim, the 4.3-liter V8 makes 503 horsepower, which is 20 more than the standard F430. It was offered for 2008 and 2009 only and even spawned a convertible variant, the even-more-expensive Scuderia Spider 16M.

This car has 26,000 miles and a paddle-shifted gearbox. It is finished in Bianco Avus with black stripes and gold wheels. This bidding on the car is already up to $200,000 at the time of this writing, and there are still a few days to go. Click here for more info.