THE MARKET
What’s sold and what will; buy a Buick Riviera
NIGEL MANSELL’S 1992 World Championship dominating Williams FW14B achieved a final price of £2,703,000 at Bonhams’ Festival of Speed auction on 5 July, making it the most expensive Willams F1 car ever sold at auction. Bonham’s well-established auction raised total sales of £7,936,033 although just 49% of lots sold – down considerably from 2018.
Another interesting motorsport highlight came in the form of the 2001 Lister Storm GT1 Prototype, which sold for £465,750. But the biggest surprise of the sale was a 2011 Land Rover Defender that had appeared in both Skyfall and Spectre James Bond films. This provenance resulted in surprising bids, the gavel finally falling at £316,250.
H&H Classics’ £2.3-million, 71% Duxford auction on 19 June witnessed the successful sale of two ‘garage find’ cars. First was a 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint Speciale, untouched since 1987, which sold well at £66,700. The extremely original Aston Martin Mark II 1.5 Litre Sports Saloon, unused since the 1970s, found a new home for £69,000.
Artcurial held a new auction in Paris on 17 June, Automobiles en Scène, and raised a total of €5,003,680. The top-seller was a steel-bodied 1954 Ferrari 275 GTB, from the Jean-Pierre Slavic Collection, at €1,930,800. This was followed by a number of modern Porsches from the Eric Coicaud Collection, led by a 2006 Carrera GT at €643,700. Just 42% of the cars on offer managed to sell, with many of those towards the low side of their estimate ranges.
Bonhams fared better during its single-day Auction at the Château de Chantilly on 30 June. With an interesting back-story and eligibility into many events, the little four-cylinder Gordini Type 15S Barquette (previewed in Octane 194) attracted healthy bidding to achieve a final price of €708,000. In total, the auction raised €2,721,758 with 66% of lots sold. Both figures were up on last year’s results.
Barrett-Jackson held its fourth Connecticut Northeast Auction on 26-29 June. It offered a total of 545 vehicles, making $21.8 million after every one of them sold. Corvette collectors were excited by the last-off-the-line C7 Corvette, which was auctioned in aid of charity for $2.7 million. A perfect 1997 Toyota Supra Anniversary Edition achieved an auction record price of $176,000, once again demonstrating the model’s rising popularity at US auctions.