Of the 38,762 1969 Corvettes made, just two were built for sale with the legendary ZL-1 427 cu.-in. race engine. One of those was a convertible. The original owner campaigned it for three years before storing it until 1989. Then, after 15 years of shows and some competition, it went to a second owner, who had it restored by the world’s top Corvette restoration shop. RM Sotheby’s estimates the next owner will pay up to $3M to take the car home from its Scottsdale auction.
By all accounts, the auctions at The Amelia — now under the ownership of Hagerty — were a grand success, with the sales from RM Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Gooding & Company totaling nearly $126M. Notably, a 1937 Talbot Lago set a world record price for the marque and for French cars at $13,425,000
A few Scottscale Auction highlights: a record $6.8 million for a 1955 alloy-body Mecedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing; a $335,000 sale of the 1949 “Rain Man” Buick Roadmaster convertible; and $775,000 for a rebuilt Duesenberg Model J engine – yes, just the engine. Read all the highlights here
The F355 was Ferrari’s successful response to the next-to-last ranking of its F348 predecessor in a five-way Car and Driver comparison. This 1995 F355, with only 900 miles, is offered by Bonhams at its Scottsdale auction, with a pre-sale estimate of $130k – $160k.
The “Elkhart Collection” is no more. RM Sotheby’s offered all of them at no reserve and brought in $44.3m. The top sale was a 1952 Ferrari 225 S Berlinetta by Vignale, which brought in $2.8m, followed by 1953 Fiat 8V Supersonic by Ghia $2.04m.
The first 1965 Shelby GT350R, a star-studded racing steed with a trophy case of documented history, sold for $3.85m at Mecum’s Indy sale this month. This is just 7 months after the “Bullitt” Mustang movie car sold for a $3.75m, breaking that record. The $3.8m GT350R was one of 36 such cars built for the track. Other GT350R models are hardly cheap dates, with selling prices around the $1m mark.
Featured in the James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, the Lotus Espirit is a classic car that was once turned into a submarine. It was a badass-looking wedge-shaped road missile that captured the spirit of the mid 1970s.
The Lamborghini Jalpa revamped the basic Urraco platform, keeping the Silhouette’s two-seat, targa-roof layout. Originally priced at $60,000 in 1980, one sold at RM Sotheby’s Palm Beach online auction for $99,000. With just 410 made and 100 sent to the U.S., it’s not something you normally see at a Cars and Coffee.
The Ferrari Testarossa burst onto the scene for 1985, starring in Miami Vice alongside Don Johnson. It competed against Magnum P.I. starring Tom Selleck, his famous mustache and Ferrari 308 GTS. The Testarossa is an iconic 1980s wild child that belongs in every Ferrari collection.
