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March is always a busy month in the classic car auction world
with the season really getting under way after a usually quiet
winter in Europe. First to kick off were London dealers Coys of
Kensington with a fixture at their now traditional venue, the
Design Centre in Islington. This was a mixed sale and the success
rate was not spectacular, with a number of cars finding homes
only after the auction. Amongst these was the 1967 Earls Court
Motor Show
Iso Grifo, originally billed as the ex-John Lennon car but
it turns out he was only photographed sitting in it on the Motor
Show stand! This Italo-American beauty seemed good value at £23,000.
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No less than three 1973 Porsche Carrera RSs were offered at Coys,
and despite the renewed popularity of this model only one found
a buyer at a lowly £26,000. From the same year of production,
a beautiful 19,500 mile Ferrari
365 Boxer struggled to £26,500 and was not sold. From
the heady late 1980s when Boxers changed hands for over £200,000,
they have come a long way: surely one of the supercar bargains
of today. Overall, this was neither one of Coys' most memorable
sales nor a disaster.
On the same day Poulain le Fur held one of their 'popular classic'
sales in Paris, mixing second hand modern luxury models with mid-level
classics. These auctions represent a relatively new initiative
and complement Poulain's larger prestige sales well. One of the
minor highlights of this event was the Mercedes-Benz
280SE 3.5 litre coupé first owned by French actor Lino
Ventura which was hammered down for a resounding Euros 25,000
(estimate Euros 15,000 - 22,000).
Another relatively mundane car with a famous first owner was
a 2001
Mercedes-Benz S320 owned by the late Princess Soraya (the
Shah of Iran's daughter who tragically died last year), which
also exceeded its pre-sale estimate to sell for Euros 55,000,
the highest price of the day.
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First of the 'big' sales in March was RM at Amelia Island in
Florida. RM produced a thick catalogue of superb variety mixing
1930s American grand classics, 1950s 'yank tanks', the usual European
sports models and one or two star lots such as the ex-Terry Cohn
Alfa Romeo Monza which the company had underwritten in order to
secure its sale. A number of cars were also included from actor
Nicolas Cage's stable. If the quality of the catalogue presentation
was not universally up to RM's normal standards, the results did
not disappoint.
The Alfa
Romeo Monza was good value, knocked down well below estimate
for a premium inclusive $2,530,000 to a well-known East Coast
collector of Italian cars, whilst
Nicolas Cage's 1938 Bugatti Type 57 Atalante was spot on the
money at its lower estimate of $451,000. His whacky Bugatti
Type 101, basically a warmed up Type 57 with post-war bodywork,
did not sell.
The American owned
Ferrari 375 MM, which had been rebodied by Scaglietti early
in its life and was arguably not as attractive as a Pinin Farina
bodied car, did well to achieve $1,925,000.
Cage's Jaguar D-Type found a new owner for $935,000 (after the
auction we believe), which seems o be the level for an average
D-Type these days. It's funny to note how C-Types have risen so
much while D-Types have stood still, making them good value today
in my opinion.
RM also did well to despatch a 1938
Mercedes-Benz 540K for $ 1.0 million, the market norm for
a really superb Cabriolet 'A' right now.
American classics of the 1930s and 1950s do not
appear often at auction in Europe and RM usually manage to find
a good selection for each of their major sales. At Amelia Island
there was something for everybody, from a
1932 Duesenburg Model 'J', surely the epitome of Great Gatsby
flamboyance, sold at $671,000, through to a brand new 2002 Cadillac
Eldorado ESC, somewhat out of place but nonetheless finding a
buyer for $45,000.
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