‘ONE LOT WHICH SHOWED HOW TIMES CHANGE WAS A 1997 PROTOTYPE IMPREZA 22B STI, WHICH SOLD FOR £113,500’

Gooding & Company had 89 cars on offer for its Friday sale and sold 69 of them, netting Amelia Island’s second-highest total at $30.6m. That didn’t, however, include the star attraction of lot 61, a 1957 Jaguar XKSS with a pre-sale estimate of $16m to $18m. Just before the sale the engine was revealed not to be the original, but that Jaguar would remanufacture an original engine and stamp it with the correct numbers. Bidding fell off just short of $12m, reaction from the rostrum suggesting it was quite close to selling at that point. There’s more to matching numbers than just the numbers, it seems…

Top seller for Gooding was lot 42, a 1998 Porsche 911 GT1 Strassenversion which sold for $5,665,000. One of just 20 roadgoing examples built of the Le Manswinning GT1, it was a low-miles example in Arctic Silver. Second slot went to a bright blue McLaren P1 which made $2,392,500, a touch above the high preauction estimate for this 1100-mile car. Much attention centred on lot 66, a 2011 Porsche 997 GT3 RS 3.8 whose celebrity owner, Caitlyn Jenner, was on hand to witness the $169,400 sale for her charitable foundation.

That’s three auctions, and sales held by Hollywood Wheels and Motostalgia brought the total up to five. Neither auction house reports its sales, but Hagerty Insurance had observers on-site and reported sales of $4.2m for the former, including an impressive number of Porsches, and $4.5m for the latter. Neither figure includes possible post-auction sales.

Missing at Amelia this year were signifcant numbers of truly expensive cars, those over the $1m to $2m mark. Only three cars from all five auctions sold for over $3m and there were no sales that exceeded $10m, as there have been in the past. Speculation among the experts is that owners of truly great cars are keeping their powder dry in this market cycle. Hagerty notes ‘a strong and vibrant entry market (cars valued below $50,000) but an upper-middle market (cars valued between $250,000 and $1m) that continues to soften’.

Does that apply to the UK as well as the US? The Bonhams sale at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting netted £5,552,000, but there were no seven-figure sales here, be they sterling or the dollar equivalent. The top seller was a replica, built between 2010 and 2014, of the 1961 Aston Martin DP214 GT competition coupé. Bonhams described it as the most accurate of the various Aston Martin DP214 recreations, expertly constructed with no expense spared, and highly competitive. It sold for a very impressive £551,666.

Second place went to a 1903 Clément 12/16hp fourcylinder rear-entrance tonneau. Selling for £281,500, this four-cylinder car is eligible for the London-toBrighton run and will provide a bit of comfort to go with its ample power. One lot which showed how times continue to change was a 1997 prototype of the limitededition Subaru Impreza 22B STI. Displayed at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show, this right-hand-drive example from its single owner’s private collection was showing just 51km from new. It sold for £113,500, and is surely well set for a secure future of collectability. We’ll finish with the Classic Car Auctions sale at the

Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show on 1-2 April at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre. This ‘everyman’ offshoot of Silverstone Auctions was conceived with the idea of a £25,000 ceiling and this particular sale certainly contained a good number of low-cost classics and restoration projects, including a 1993 Range Rover Vogue SE which made just £800.

The highest seller, however, broke the six-figure barrier at £100,100. It was a 1985 BMW M635 CSi, just 15,300 miles from new, and it made an interesting comparison with a nice non-M 635 CSi in the sale which proved under a tenth as valuable. Second place went to one of the last Austin-Healey 3000s to leave the line in 1967. Originally owned by the Donald Healey Motor Company, it sold for £96,800. It seems that what Hagerty might call the ‘lower-middle market’ still incorporates some highly desirable machinery.

DAVE KINNEY is an auction analyst, an expert on the US classic car auction scene, and publishes the USA’s classic market bible, the Hagerty Price Guide.