Ferrari Dino sells for £440k

Over £1 million more was spent on classic cars during the three Silverstone Auctions sales at this year’s Race Retro than in 2016. The £5.7m invested in the futures of 99 auction vehicles was a new high for the Midlands auction house at the Stoneleigh Park annual in Warwickshire, where there were buyers for 78 per cent of road cars and 26 owner-drivers were prepared to pay just over £1m for competition cars.

A long bidding battle between a contestant in the saleroom and another competing elsewhere for the keys to a 1974 Ferrari Dino 246GT – a right-hand driver with factory flared-arches and Campagnolo wheels, which had come to market for the time in 22 years – was eventually resolved in favour of the phone-bidder. The £429,875 with premium paid by the winner however was nearly £140,000 over the lower estimate!

From the same delighted private vendor source, another right-hand drive 1998 Ferrari F355 Berlinetta that had only been driven 7017 miles from new had come to market to find £136,125, again £50,000 more than had been forecast. And among locally reared Jaguars to change keepers, a matching numbers 1960 XK150 3.8 SE Drophead excited determined bidding before selling for £132,750, more than double the lower estimate figure.

All 12 Porsches offered were snapped up, a 1980 911 930 Turbo headlining for £109,125, and eight ‘Fast Ford’ road car changes of ownership were led by an ex-Jensen Button 2010 GT40 at £264,375, while an only 1800-mile from new 2010 Ford Focus RS in shocking Electric Green achieved an even more shocking £41,063. But then my old 1965 Ford Lotus Cortina MkI, which cost me considerably less than £10,000 in the late 1980s, fetched £45,000 this time around!