S T O P P R E S S
Restored 1967 Ferrari 275GTB/4 in Amaranto with reassuring Red Book made £2.567m to head Bonhams £5.1m Swiss sale, but only 55% sold
There were 5 Ferraris in the 29 June top ten at the Bonmont Golf & Country Club, with an only 170k from new in 2022 812 GTS Hardtop in second place from the portfolio of Bernard Fornas, the former President and CEO of Cartier International, which cleared the lower estimate with a CHF 460,000 (£419,784) result. More Fornas cars have been consigned by the auction house for their Quail Lodge California 15 August and Zoute Belgium 12 October sales.
A matching numbers 1974 Dino 246GTS in ‘Celeste Metallizzato’ (1 of 29 to have been factory painted in this Light Blue Metallic) from US, Swedish and Swiss residencies was the third highest priced car, valued by its buyer at a premium-inclusive CHF 448,500 (£409,289), again just within the forecast band.
A best offer of CHF 2,200,000 (£2,007,665) was not enough to secure a F1 car for the street in the form of the Adrian Newey co-designed 1,270kg Aston Martin Valkyrie 038 in Black powered by Cosworth 6.5 1,160bhp V12 delivered new to Monaco in 2022 to F1 Champ Nico Rosberg, for which CHF 2,600,000-2,900,000 000 (£2.24-2.61m) was sought by auctioneers and their vendor.
A well below estimate CHF 402,500 (£367,311) however did land a part-restored 2023/4 Bentley S1 Continental with Sports-Saloon coachwork crafted by HJM in 1956, 1 of 431 S1 Conti, though rarer in LHD. Whereas a more than top estimate CHF 276,000 (£251,870) was necessary to land a 1988 Porsche 911 930 Turbo Targa ‘Flat Nose’ that had been forecast to fetch CHF170,000-220,000 (£178,000-230,000), the only lot in the sale to outperform catalogue estimate.
Among other changes of ownership to change their owners under Bonhams UK auctioneer Briony Harford’s gavel beside scenic Geneva Lac, 1936 Bugatti Type 57 Berline sold for a mid-estimate CHF 230,000 (£209,892), 2001 BMW Z8 Roadster with Hardtop a CHF 7,000 under guide CHF 163,700 (£149,023), only just below estimate CHF 97,750 (£89,204) 1965 Chevrolet 327/365bhp Corvette Coupe and within guide CHF 92,000 (£83,956) 1997 Ferrari F355 Spider.
Swiss Vital Statistics - When the mouse had moved on, while 20 voitures had to be transported back to their vendors homes, 24 or 55% of the 44 full-size lots had transacted for a 15% buyers’ premium-inclusive CHF 5,684,791 (£5,282,287), an average of £220,095 being spent per car sold. 48% of cars hammered, 12 of them and 27% of those offered, had been consigned Sans Reserve. Whilst the reality of below estimate bids were accepted by 50% of vendors, whereas only 17 cars achieved estimated figures.
The day before 28 June at the Golf Club Saint-Tropez, the Parisian House of Artcurial offered 91 automobiles, selling 49 or 54% of them, much the same as the 55% sale rate achieved by Bonhams in Switzerland.
Comparing the not much above half the car lots sold in both the South of France and near Geneva to two weeks earlier, when 89% of 248 much lower priced classics sold from the 280 offered by ACA 14-15 June during their 2-Day Drive-Through at King’s Lynn Norfolk!
While a bid of 1,970,000 euros (£1,682,584) may have been insufficient for a Belgian 1965 Ferrari 275GTB by Scaglietti in Celeste from 2020-2023 restoration that had been estimated at 2,500,000-2,950,000 euros (£2,153,258-2,517,897). 24,000 euros (£192,640) below guide was accepted in Saint-Tropez for a 1957 Classiche Certificated 1963 Ferrari 250 GT/Lusso, also in receipt of restoration to high standard, sold for a premium-inclusive 1,156,000 euros (£987,343).
A 600,000-800,000 euros (£516,000-688,000) estimated 2021 Ford GT sold for a within forecast 696,000 euros (£594,456), a 450,000-575,000 euros (£430,000-495,000) 1986 Lamborghini LM002 ‘Diomante’ SUV for 464,000 euros (396,304), the 464,000-580,000 euros (£399,000-499,000) Sebastian Loeb and Francis Delecour rallied 2011 Porsche 997 GT3 RS 4.0 for below estimate 440,800 euros (£376,488) and a 300,000-400,000 euros (£258,000-344,000) 2004 Subaru Impreza S10 by Prodrive for 330,600 euros (£282,360).
A 200,000-260,000 euros (£172,000-224.000) 1987 Ferrari Testarossa Pininfarina Coupe made the required 208,800 euros (£178,336), a 130,000-160,000 euros (£112,000-138,000) 1967 911S SWB-Coupe for 133,499 euros (£113,937) and a 75,000-100,000 euros (£64,500-86,000) 1973 Porsche 911T 2.4 Coupe for 81,200 euros (£69,353), all within their pre-sale estimates.
French Vital Statistics – by last orders in restaurants, after 32 cars had been auctioned Sans Reserve, 35% of cars offered and 65% of cars sold, 49 or 54% of 91 cars had sold for 5,379,872 euros with premium (£4,626,690), an average £94,422 per car paid. While none fetched more than forecast, 34% sold within their guides and 9% for less than the lower estimates. RH-E
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1955 M-B W196R Streamliner fetches 51,155,000 euros (£42,458,650!) in RM Sotheby's stand-alone M-B Museum Sale
After a 1 February 2025 bidding battle over the phones and in the room, auctioneer Sholto Gilbertson's record breaking gavel crashed down at £46.5m bid. Raced by Stirling Moss around the banked curves of Monza during the 1955 Italian Grand Prix, the Stromlinienwagen W196R chassis became both the second most valuable collector car auctioned and the world's top priced racer.
For in the same Mercedes-Benz Heritage GmbH room in Stuttgart in 2022, the same global market leading house also hammered the most expensive car ever sold at auction, the 300SLR 'Uhlenhaut Coupe' flying to a stratospheric 135,000,000 euros with premium (a £112,050,000 world record), making it an all Merc front row!
One of the very few Silver Arrows to be in a private quiver was gifted in 1965 by the then Daimler-Benz AG Unterturkheim factory to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, who had consigned their 70 year old exhibit to RM Sotheby's, the proceeds to benefit the restorative upkeep and expansion of their Indy 500 themed collection of over 150 vehicles and more than 55,000 artefacts.
Few historic racing cars resonate as strongly as the famous Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows that dominated Pre-F1 Grand Prix racing in the immediate pre- and post-war era, admired for their advanced technology and spectacular speed. From the ashes of WW2 defeat, the W196R was developed to meet new regulations for engines with up to 2.5-litre displacement introduced in 1954, and it soon proved to be the car to beat in the hands of legends such as Juan Manual Fangio and Stirling Moss. RH-E
