Ferrari leads way at classic auction to hit $400m
The sales at Bonhams, Gooding & Co, and RM Auctions were part of the six-day auto extravaganza held last month.
The values of classic cars have risen along with other high-end collectibles, including art and wine, as wealthy individuals’ appetite for alternative investments grows. The price for the red Ferrari 250 GTO smashed the previous global auction record of $29.7m (€22.9m) set a year ago. The new high is a 132 percent increase from 2011, when a 1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa prototype fetched $16.4m (€12.7m) at Gooding. “The market is the highest it’s ever been,” said McKeel Hagerty, chief executive officer of Hagerty, a Traverse City, Michigan-based insurer and classic car database. “There are new buyers from Europe, Asia, Latin America and some from the Middle East.”
The auction houses sold 745 of the offered 1,235 lots, totalling $399m (€308m), according to Hagerty. The results surpassed the previous year’s record tally of $312m (€241m), Hagerty said. The average price at the California sales rose to $535,648 (€ 413,465) from $416,696 (€321,649) last year.
Ferraris were the most sought-after cars, taking all but one slot among the top 10 lots of the week, according to Hagerty.
“The Ferrari market has changed drastically in the past three years,” said Marcel Massini, a Swiss-based Ferrari historian who attended the events. “Prices for these models easily tripled since then.”
Massini spoke from the annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, where 20 of 250 Testa Rossa models were displayed, a group worth about $1 billion (€0.77bn) , he said.
At the auctions, the $38.1m (€29.4m) Ferrari 250 GTO was the top lot. Estimated by Bonhams at $30m-$40m (€23m-€30m), the Ferrari was bought in 1965 by Fabrizio Violati, whose family made its money in agriculture and mineral water bottling and distribution, according to the auction house.
The car placed second at the 1962 Tour de France Automobile race. Violati, who died in 2010, was the fourth and last owner of the Ferrari.
The record price for a car is held by a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO racer, which sold for $52 million (€40m) in a private transaction in October, Bloomberg News reported. The previous global auction record was achieved by a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196R Formula 1 racing car that fetched $29.7 million (€23m) at Bonhams last year.
“It’s a highly romanticised car,” Hagerty said about the Ferrari 250 GTO model from 1962-63. “Only 39 of them were built. Every single one of them was known from the day it was built. It was the last of what you refer to as a dual purpose car: You can drive it on the street and race it.”
RM Auctions, based in Blenheim, Ontario, offered 32 Ferraris among the 129 cars this year.
The sale was led by a 1964 Ferrari 275 GTB/C Speciale, only one of three ever made, that fetched $26.4 million (€20.3m).
