On November 21st, RM Auctions and Sotheby’s united to organise THE auction of the year 2013. How is it possible when you remember that RM has sold a Ferrari 275 GTB/4 NART Spyder for 27.5M$ in August ? Text : Bertrand D. Images : RM Auctions ©
Well, this is their recipe : choose only 30 cars, but be eclectic : from a 1892 Brewster Park Drag to a 2011 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Bleu Nuit. Then expose them on the 10th floor of Sotheby’s building in New York City, as they would be exposed in the MoMa. And sell them. This auction really deserve to be called « Art Of The Automobile ».
The results confirm the strong value of the Mercedes-Benz 300SL : two were offered for sale : a blue on beige leather Roadster with its original Hard Top, toolbox and luggage, sold for 1,650,000$ all in, and a Light Green metallic on red leather Coupe, sold for 1,265,000$.
Italian and French cars are getting higher in value too: one of the auction’s highlight was the 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C SS Cabriolet with a wonderful teardrop body by Figoni and Falaschi, sold for 7,150,000$.
Two other special bodied cars got over the 4M$ barrier : a 1956 Maserati A6G/2000 Spider Zagato, seen at the Concorso D’Eleganza Villa D’Este in May 2013 has reached 4,455,000$ and a one-off Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Passo Corto Competizione alloy bodied by Bertone was sold for an astonishing 7,040,000$.
« Ferrari 250 » were definitly the keywords to be successful here in New York : the other highlight of this auction was the 1964 250 LM (chassis #6107) sold for 14,300,000$. This car has not raced a lot but finished 1st in class at the 1968 24 hours of Daytona. Furthermore, it has belonged to the same man for 30 years. That means a 201% average increase in 5 years, when two 250 LM (chassis #6173 with « Drogo Style » noise, and chassis #5845, with a Pininfarina style noise) were sold for 3,608,000$ and 6,979,225$ by… RM Auctions !
Finally we can notice two other valuable cars : The Jaguar E-Type and its Japanese cousin, the Toyota 2000GT. You can find a lot of E-Types Series I Roadster on the market today, and with the 4.2 litre straight six, it would cost you between 100,000$ and 200,000$. RM’s car was a bit special : completely restored it had participate at the famous Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, and has won trophies at the Jaguar Club North America events. It has fetched 467,500$. The Toyota, a red, one of (only !) 54 US cars, has seen the hammer going down for 968,000$.
You can see the full results of this auction on RM’s website : http://rmauctions.com/results/result.cfm?SaleCode=NY13
