Amelia cooks up a storm
But the really big-money cars are still sheltering from the market
Concours officially marks the end of the northern hemisphere’s months of collectorcar hibernation. And attached to the Concours were, of course, the auctions, five of them this year – along with a major spanner in the works.
The Concours is meant to be held on a Sunday, but this year a threatening line of thunderstorms forced the decision, just three days before the event, to move one day forward to Saturday. Laptops, tablets and smartphones worldwide lit up with the news, scrambles to change flights or lodgings ensued. Kudos to all involved; with a modicum of magic and very few hard feelings, it all went off as planned. This would not have been handled so well in the pre-internet age.
RM Sotheby’s was the auction house most affected by the date change, as its sale this year was spread over both Friday and Saturday. The second part ended up running concurrently with the Concours; some seats were empty at the start, but soon it was standing-room only.
Starting off the RM Sotheby’s Friday sale was ‘A Gentleman’s Collection: the pride and passion of Orin Smith’. This mostly no-reserve, 62-lot listing showcased many collectable Rolls-Royces and Bentleys as well as signifcant machinery from other manufacturers. Four of Friday’s lots made the RM Sotheby’s top 10 for the weekend, including lot 163, which was the last car to sell on Friday night. This 1936 Lancia Astura Cabriolet Series III Tipo Bocca, wildly styled by Mario Revelli di Beaumont for Pinin Farina and bearing chassis number 33-5513, sold for a within-estimate $2,145,000.
It was, however, thoroughly upstaged in value by Saturday’s top seller. That was lot 232 (pictured), a 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Cabriolet with chassis number 57513 and a Vanvooren body. It sold for $7.7m, but that was still $800,000 below the low catalogue estimate of this unrestored example. The two-day sale netted $71m from the 91% of lots that sold, the largest haul ever for an RM Sotheby’s auction at Amelia Island.
Now we backtrack to the Thursday and the first sale of the Concours event, held by Bonhams. The auction house’s third Amelia Island sale brought $10.1m with 83% of lots sold. Highest-selling of these was lot 144, a 1955 Ferrari 250 Europa GT with an alloy body, said to be one of two examples with factory competition features. It sold for $2,227,000, just shy of its low estimate but far ahead of the number-two seller, a 1986 Lamborghini Countach 5000S Quattrovalvole. Supplied new to a Swiss customer, this sub-36,500km example in red with white leather still shows very well. Its $335,500 was also a touch under its low estimate.