£2.5m Ferrari 275GTB tops weekend’s biggest sales

By Lizzie Pope
News
 | 14 Oct 2019
Classic & Sports Car – £2.5m Ferrari 275GTB tops weekend’s biggest sales

A 1965 Ferrari 275GTB Alloy ‘long nose’ became one of the most expensive cars sold in Europe this year when it changed hands at Bonhams’ Zoute Sale for €2,875,000 (£2,526,593).

It helped Bonhams achieve a €10,676,550 (£9,385,274) total in Belgium on Friday (11 October), with 35 of the 46 lots finding new homes, and was one of five Ferraris in the top 10.

Meanwhile at RM Auctions Hershey sale, held on Thursday and Friday in Pennsylvania, a 1930 Cadillac V-16 Sport Phaeton by Fleetwood was the big winner, making $1,221,000 (£971,024).

Classic & Sports Car – £2.5m Ferrari 275GTB tops weekend’s biggest sales

Although no reserve or pre-sale estimate were quoted for the 275GTB, it was expected to be Zoute’s star entry and it ended up as the top seller by quite some margin – the next-priciest lot was a 2004 Ferrari Enzo that reached €1,506,500, in the middle of its guide price.

The highest-priced non-Ferrari at Bonhams’ sale at the 10th Zoute Grand Prix was the car that was the third most expensive, a 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster (above) that sold for €1,035,000, against a €950,000-1,150,000 estimate.

Next was a Ferrari F40 that was bang in the middle of its guide price when it reached €920,000.

And a few other lots that caught our eye were the kids’ cars, most significantly the Ferrari 312T ‘Niki Lauda’ car that, we assume, some generous parent secured for €26,450 (that’s £23,148), likewise the €20,700 spent on the ‘Jim Clark’ Lotus Type 49 child’s car.

In comparison, it makes the €13,800 achieved by the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR 722 and the €6900 for ‘Sharknose’ Ferrari, both cars scaled down for children, seem almost reasonable. 

Classic & Sports Car – £2.5m Ferrari 275GTB tops weekend’s biggest sales

On the other side of the Atlantic, RM Auctions’ sale was dominated by American classics.

The Cadillac V-16 Sport Phaeton (above) that topped the sales charts had featured in the 1964 film The Carpetbaggers and was the subject of a lengthy bidding war which drove its price above $1m, while the next most expensive car was a one-of-six 1931 Marmon Sixteen Coupe which sold for $550,000.

This contributed to a total figure for the Hershey sale of $15.6m, of which the Merrick Auto Museum Collection, which sold entirely without reserve on the Thursday, generated $4m.

And top in that portion of the sale was a 1925 Duesenberg Model A Four-Passenger Sport Phaeton by Millspaugh & Irish, which sold for $236,500 against its $150-200,000 estimate.

Classic & Sports Car – £2.5m Ferrari 275GTB tops weekend’s biggest sales

One car that smashed its pre-sale estimate was the 1900 Rockwell Hansom Cab (above), the first motorised taxicab in New York City, which attracted enthusiastic bidding to achieve $132,000, despite being predicted to reach $35-45,000.

A 1911 Rolls-Royce 40/50HP Silver Ghost Drophead Coupé was the top non-American car at the RM Auctions Hershey sale, chassis number 1713 selling for $385,000, while two Oldsmobiles made it into the top five, a 1911 Model 28 Autocrat Roadster ($495,000) and a 1908 Limited Prototype ($423,500).

Get the full details from RM Auctions’ Hershey sale here, while full results from Bonhams’ Zoute sale are here.

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