THE MARKET

More high-profile pre-wars made big money in November

Deals and more, plus Celica GT-Four guide

LindLey and ann BothweLL owned what is said to have been the last orange grove in the San Fernando Valley on the western side of Los Angeles. They were also long-time car collectors, responsible for saving dozens of vehicles – including some important racecars – from scrapyards.

The Bothwells were the go-to people to interview about old cars in the 1950s, at which point they had already been collecting automobiles for decades. Their collection was a working one, so there’s a decent chance that you have seen cars owned by the Bothwells. Many of their cars have appeared in Hollywood productions.

So Bonhams’ Bothwell Collection Sale was a fine example of the single-owner collection sales that now happen with some regularity. It wasn’t the lush land that car collectors were coming to look at and potentially buy; rather it was the extremely eclectic collection of cars, both important and less important, that made this a highly interesting sale.

The star of the event was also the top seller, a 1914 Peugeot L45 Grand Prix two-seater. Catalogued as chassis number one and engine number one of Peugeot’s pioneering twinoverhead-camshaft design, this was the exIndianapolis car later raced by Ralph Mulford and Arthur H Klein. To that we would add the Bothwells themselves, as Lindley and Ann were more than just collectors. It’s not very often an auction catalogue devotes 14 full pages to a single car, but such is the stature of this Peugeot. Selling for $7.26m (against a $3-5m pre-sale estimate), it accounted for over half of the proceeds from the day’s sale of vehicles.

The second most expensive Bothwell car was a 1908 Benz, a 75/105hp Prinz Heinrich raceabout once raced by Barney Oldfield, who was arguably the most famous name in early American racing. Lindley Bothwell had bought it from Oldfield’s sponsor, Eddie Maier. This handsome racing car brought $1.87m, and was surely well bought despite exceeding its $1-1.5m estimate. A 1908 MercedesSimplex 65hp two-seater raceabout rounded out the top three at $1,072,500.

There were dozens of other interesting vehicles, among which a 1925 Ford Model T speedster was one of the more affordable purchases of the day at $6600. W hen the dust settled, total sales amounted

to $13.081m with all 48 cars sold. Like many people steeped in the hobby, the Bothwells also had a huge collection of automobilia along with streetcars and trains, both real and scale-model.

The Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York featured just one vehicle, but it did become the most valuable modern-era Formula 1 car ever sold at auction. The Monaco Grand Prixwinning Ferrari F1 F2001, chassis 211, ex-Michael Schumacher, brought a jaw-dropping $7,504,000.

Mecum held its inaugural Las Vegas sale midNovember at the city’s Convention Center. With 557 vehicles sold over three days, receipts exceeded $22m. Camaros, specifically Yenko Camaros, were the top news and also the top sellers from Sin City. One of the two 1968 Yenko Camaros that sold set a new world record of $660,000, while the other brought $490,000.

Bonhams’ recent sale in Padua, Italy, featured much home-market metal, but the top-seller turned out to be German – a 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300SL roadster that made a market-correct €895,000. Runner-up was a 1960 Maserati 3500 GT Vignale Spyder at €637,000, but just 31 cars sold of the 59 on offer. In Paris, Artcurial held its Automobiles sur les

Champs event, selling a reported 59 cars out of 78. A 1925 Bugatti Type 35, described as ex-Jo Siffert, topped the field at €1,438,900, followed by a 1954 Bentley R Type Continental by HJ Mulliner that changed hands for €814,100. Perhaps the most unlikely lot was a 1963 Studebaker Avanti supercharged R-2 coupe, sold for $41,680.

Auction news from Australia centres around Shannons’ mid-November Sydney sale in which 24 out of 25 cars sold. A quarter of the AUS $2,126,000 revenue came from the last lot, a right-hand-drive 1972 Ferrari Dino 246 GT that made AUS $578,000.

The Bonhams London to Brighton sale returned to the company’s New Bond Street location, selling 25 of 26 automotive lots, of which the most

‘THE BIGGEST SILVERSTONE STORY WAS THE £97,875 PAID FOR A 1980 FORD ESCORT RS2000, DESCRIBED AS SHOWROOM FRESH’

valuable proved to be a 1902 Westfield Model G 13hp tonneau at £287,100. A 1898 Germain 6hp, twin-cylinder ‘open-drive’ limousine was runnerup at £225,500. Cars eligible for the London to Brighton run continue to be sought after.

Brightwells held its third Bicester Heritage sale, shifting 70% of the 105 cars on offer – or 87% if you’re just counting the pre-war cars, a demand upturn perhaps mirroring that in the US. Revenue approached £1.4m, the biggest contribution (£134,200) coming from a 1976 Ferrari 308 GTB

Vetroresina in rare right-hand drive. Cars from the Blue Oval were the talk of Silverstone Auctions’ sale at the NEC Classic Car Show. Of the 120-plus cars on offer, 67% of them sold to generate £3.6m. The biggest story was the £97,875 paid for a 1980 Ford Escort RS2000, described as ‘showroom fresh’. This low-miles example is said to have set a new world record.

Not so long ago, the few sales held in the late autumn months tended to be small ones run by small companies. That’s not the case any more; auction calendars in Europe and North America might not be quite so busy when the weather turns cold, but the scene remains active while buyers hunt for next summer’s classic wheels. No one yet knows what 2018 holds for us in the auction arena, but change is the one constant we can count on.

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.