It was a stellar weekend for Gooding & Co. at Pebble Beach. With a $113.7m total for its two-day auction, the official auctioneer of the Concours d’Elegance achieved the highest automotive auction result ever. Fully 24 of the 123 lots offered sold for over $1m; in fact, the average price paid for a car was a remarkable $1,033,966. The $11,770,000 achieved by a 1926 Mercedes 540 K may have been shy of the $16m some had predicted, but it was still a double-world record for a Mercedes and a pre-war car at auction. Right behind the 540 K’s price was the $11.275m fetched by a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider, the highest price ever paid for the model. In all, eight Ferrari models dating from 1953-1962 each sold for above $2m, and four exceeded the $4m mark. Other standouts were a 1928 Bentley 4 ½ Litre Le Mans Sports “Bobtail” ($6.05m), and a 1964 Ford GT40 Prototype ($4.95m).
Gooding $113.7m Pebble Beach Total A Record
August 21, 2012
Prices Soar At Scottsdale Classic Car Auctions
January 21, 2013Little doubt remained about the extraordinary vitality of the vintage car market after the results at the multiple auctions that took place this past weekend in and around Scottsdale, Arizona. Gooding & Co. led the final tallies with a total of $52.5m, paced by the sale of a 1958 Ferrari 250GT LWB California Spider for $8.25m. With six of the weekend top 10 sales, Gooding’s result was up 31% over last year’s sale, a pattern of growth that almost all the Scottsdale events mirrored.
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Arizona Sales Launch Vintage Car Auction Season
January 7, 2013In January, the place to be for vintage car collectors is Arizona, where a series of auctions happens every year in and around Phoenix. Both Gooding and RM will be hosting sales the weekend of January 18-19, when a 1957 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spyder, offered at Gooding and estimated at $5.5m-$7.5m, is likely to set the weekend’s pace. That is, unless it’s eclipsed by another ultra-rare Ferrari that RM is selling. It’s a 1960 250 GT SWB Berlinetta ‘Competizione,’ which has been exhibited at Pebble Beach, the Quail, and Italy’s Villa d’Este. RM is circumspect about its anticipated value, a tipoff about the sky-high price they’re expecting.
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’68 Ford Sets Record, ’36 Mercedes Falls Short At Pebble Beach
August 20, 2012Records fell at the high-value vintage car auctions around the Pebble Beach Concours over the weekend, but they weren’t the ones that had been expected. A 1968 Ford GT, used by Steve McQueen in the making of “Le Mans,” became the most expensive American car ever sold at auction when the gavel came down at $11m, including buyer’s premium. A magnificent 1936 Mercedes 540K Special Roadster that had been anticipated to be the weekend’s star fell short, however, selling for “just” $11.7m, including premiums.
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Rising Value of Unrestored Cars
By Malcolm Welford, Vintage Car Specialist
