Racing Aston is the real thing
A proper car with proper history, but how much is this DBR1 likely to fetch?
RM Sotheby’s has thrown down a challenge to all the other auction houses at this year’s Monterey Car Week bash. Sotheby’s early announcement that it will be offering this super-correct Aston Martin DBR1 just calmly states, ‘OK, what have you got?’ It’s certainly going to take some trumping.
The first of just five DBR1S built, this is thought to be the most correct example and comes fitted with a totally accurate reproduction engine built by top specialist RS Williams – for driving purposes – along with the last of its works-fitted race engines, which ticks the boxes for provenance and completeness. It has been driven by some of the greats including Stirling Moss, Carroll Shelby and Roy Salvadori and recorded overall victory at the 1959 Nürburgring World Sportscar Championship race – contributing to Aston Martin winning the Championship that year.
On its place and potential, K500’s Simon Kidston comments, ‘RM has pulled off a great coup in securing DBR1/1, the first example of Aston’s greatest sports-racing model and a three-times Le Mans veteran. It may not have the broader kudos of last year’s Le Mans-winning Jaguar D-type, but the Canadian auction house will almost certainly be hoping to beat that car’s $21 million price tag. With impeccable originality, great racing pedigree and belonging to collecting royalty, its auction performance will test the strength and depth of the 2017 market. Everything else, as they say, will be background noise.’
Past performances have shown DBR1S to have a closer relationship in value to Ferrari 250 GTOS than Jaguar D-types, so it should easily beat that target. As ever at this end of the market the question comes down to who’s wearing their buying shoes on the day. There will also be some subtly raised eyebrows over why it has come to market and not changed hands in a quiet brokered deal, as is so often the way with cars like this. One thing’s for certain – all eyes will be on the Portola Hotel and Spa this August for the result.