After several summers of madness, both sell-through rates and outright numbers seem to have softened in the past year, but that doesn’t mean this summer’s auctions haven’t given us a few gems – the actual quality of the cars we’ve seen over the past few months have been just as high as ever.
It seems like there have never been more places to buy and sell cars either, with almost every weekend playing host to another big sale, and dealers as well as traditional auction houses getting in on the act – to say nothing of the swelling number of online auction platforms which now offer lots from around the world.
So from Paris to Goodwood, Pebble Beach to Silverstone, here are some of this summer’s auction stars that couldn’t help but catch our eye.
1984 Lamborghini Countach LP400S, Aguttes Summer Sale, Paris, 23 June
Aguttes’ star car at its Summer Sale in June had no problems finding a home. The blazing white paintwork might have looked more at home in Miami than Paris, especially in concert with equally crisp white wheels and a white leather interior, but the sale was no doubt helped by the fact this Countach was a real driver: the previous owner had covered more than 19,000 miles in it over his 23-year ownership, a good proportion of the car’s total, and while it was showing signs of patina, regular maintenance had kept the car fresh. The €465,300 sale price (just under £400,000) just nipped in above the lower estimate; hopefully low enough for the new owner to justify adding 800-or-so miles a year of their own.
Image courtesey of Aguttes
1986 MG Metro 6R4 rally car, Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed, Goodwood, 12 July
The value of bona fide Group B cars has risen through the roof over the last decade, with few models, be they rare road-going models or competition cars, going for less than six figures. Which makes the Belga-liveried Metro 6R4 that sold in July look like spectacular value at £80,500. While the Metro’s competition history in works form had mixed results, it was always popular among privateers, and this car, recently rebuilt, competed in rallies all the way from 1986 to 2009. A Metro 6R4 at flat-chat through a forest is something that should be seen – and heard, with that 3-litre V6 – to be believed.
Image courtesey of Bonhams
1937 Bentley 4¼ Shooting Brake ‘Woody’, Historics ‘The Summer Serenade’, Datchet, 20 July
And now for something completely different, as they used to say on Monty Python. Prewar Bentleys are no strangers to the auction circuit, but we’d wager not many look as fine as this one. Bentley’s ‘four and a quarter’ models arrived in 1936 and most were bodied as sport saloons, and that’s how this one began, but in 1952 was taken to coachbuilders Jones Brothers Limited of Willesden for its spectacular wooden shooting brake body. Amazingly, Historics notes it spent some time as a grocer’s delivery van, but more recently it’s enjoyed a six-week, 3300-mile jaunt through New Zealand. Perhaps most striking is the hammer price: £68,640, or similar to a six or seven year-old Bentayga…
Image courtesy of the Historics
2009 Mercedes-Benz CLK 63 AMG Black Series, RM Sotheby’s Tegernsee, Tegernsee, 27 July
The CLK 63 AMG Black Series wasn’t the first car to wear the Black Series moniker, nor the fastest, but its Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft styling makes it among the most appealing, as does its 500 horsepower, naturally-aspirated 6.2-litre hand-built V8. Previous ownership by tennis superstar Roger Federer doesn’t hurt the provenance of the car that sold in late July either, even if he only owned it for a year. A sale price of €172,500 (around £145,000) is par for the course – or should that be a deuce? – for recent CLK Black Series values.
Image courtesy of the owner
1988 ItalDesign Aztec, Broad Arrow Monterey Jet Center Auction, Monterey, 14-15 August
The Monterey Jet Center during Monterey Car Week seemed like the perfect place for one of the most intriguing and spectacularly styled cars we saw cross the block this summer. Built to celebrate ItalDesign’s 20th anniversary, the Aztec pairs an Audi five-cylinder engine with a Lancia Delta four-wheel drive system (so there’s a real rallying rivalry under the dramatic skin) and features dual gullwing canopies, a rallying trip computer as standard fitment, and a custom steering wheel by Nardi that’s unique to the car. The $246,400 (£187,000) sale price isn’t insignificant, but for a working, driving vehicle rather than a display piece, it seems fair to us.
Image courtesy of the Broad Arrow
1970 Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato 1300, Bonhams The Quail, Carmel, 16 August
Few classics and collector cars divide opinion like those wrought by Zagato, but if there’s to be any consensus, it’s that the coachbuilder’s take on the 105-series Alfa Romeo platform is among its most compelling efforts, a wedgy little device that perfectly signalled the start of the 1970s. Like the best Zagatos, it cut some weight from the original too – probably one reason that Gordon Murray owns a Junior Z, albeit fettled by Alfaholics. Perhaps thanks to lacking a reserve, the $39,200 achieved by this red 1970 car, around £30,000, feels very fair indeed; a similar car in the UK would likely go for comfortably over £40,000.
Image courtesy of Bonhams
1995 Vauxhall Cavalier BTCC, Iconic Auctioneers Silverstone Festival, Silverstone, 23 August
We bet you weren’t expecting to see a Vauxhall Cavalier in among the Lamborghinis and Aston Martins, but you’ve probably already twigged that this car is no ordinary mid-1990s repmobile. Instead, it’s John Cleland’s British Touring Car Championship-winning 1995 ‘super tourer’, built by Ray Mallock Limited and with six race wins under its belt that season. Cleland remains one of the biggest personalities from the super touring golden era and the 975kg, near-300bhp car one of its most iconic shapes and liveries. There are now race series catering to these cars once again, and a price of £94,500 seems more than reasonable for a piece of British racing history.
Image courtesy of Iconic
2003 Ford Focus RS, Iconic Auctioneers Silverstone Festival, Silverstone, 24 August
Does any type of car generate so much buzz among enthusiasts as a hot hatchback? We’ve seen 205 and Golf GTIs from the 1980s already commanding big money, but we’re now well into the realms of 2000s-era favourites stealing the limelight, as two Focus RSs showed at Iconic’s Silverstone auction in August. Most enigmatic was a delivery-miles car with a £60k-£70k estimate that sold for an undisclosed sum, but a few lots later, a 13,500-mile example of the perfectly-proportioned, Imperial Blue-painted hatch sold for £34,875, suggesting the RS is quickly catching up with the Escort Cosworth in collectability.
Image courtesy of Iconic
1971 Austin Mini Cooper S MkIII, Bonhams Goodwood Revival sale, Goodwood, 7 September
Torrential rain took some of the energy out of this year’s Goodwood Revival sales (and the Revival itself), but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a few auction highlights. In many respects, there’s nothing that special about the 1971 Mini Cooper S that caught our eye, but then, a Mini’s already pretty special, isn’t it? This one, restored with a new bodyshell in 1983, looks spot on in black and gold rather than more familiar Mini hues, and with a Swiftune camshaft and a few other tweaks, apparently makes 85bhpm from its 1275cc A-series. A hammer price of £24,150 shows Mini buyers won’t mess about for the right car, but is a small price to pay for so much entertainment.
Image courtesy of Bonhams
1970 Aston Martin DBS, Bonhams Goodwood Revival sale, Goodwood, 7 September
Alongside the Mini, above, this 1970 Aston Martin DBS would surely make for the perfect two-car 1970s British garage, especially in its one-of-nine, and oh-so-seventies Bahama Yellow paintwork. It is, of course, nearly identical in spec to the one driven by Roger Moore in The Persuaders – a little less clichéd than a Bond-spec silver DB5, these days – and was resprayed in its original hue in 2020, which is surely why it looks so good today. It’s been used only sparingly in recent years, but £60,000 of recent recommissioning and restoration no doubt made the buyer rest easy about the £149,500 sale price, well above its £90k-£120k estimate.
Image courtesy of Bonhams
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