The greatest collection of racing GT40s assembled since they all went to Le Mans a half a century ago was lined up on the lawn at the Pebble Beach Concours to commemorate Ford’s victory 50 years.
Advertisement
Auction values of blue-chip cars are down.
Mattei spent the past six years having the vehicle restored to immaculate condition, time that’s apparently paid off in the form of this win (it also took the Gwenn Graham Most Elegant Convertible award at the show). That’s down 13.1 percent from last year’s $396.8 million total and down 13.8 percent from 2014’s peak of $400 million in sales.
McKeel Hagerty, who watched the start of the annual Pebble Beach exhibition, explained the drop might be because there are fewer cars, 123 this year versus 129 last year. In 2015, that number was just slightly lower, at $456,067. He says auction houses know its crowd and will bet for sports cars this year. Some examples are the McLaren P1, LaFerrari, and Ferrari F12berlinetta. The 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO Berlinetta, nicknamed “Long Wheelbase Berlinetta” or “Tour de France”, was sold for $38 million.
This time, the show is going great and all the participants are showing off their exceptional craze for their cars and entrants are making the weather more hot with their unbelievable and un-exceptional cars. Yet that figure hides a startling fact: According to Hagerty, the sell-through rate for cars priced above $100,000 fell from 72 percent to 57 percent. The Alfa Romeo 8C is another option.
At the other end of the scale is a handsome 1968 Dino 206 GT (estimate: £540k-£630k) though it’s far from a Ferrari-fest; we’ve already covered the stunning BMW M1 being offered and the first-ever Shelby Cobra too, but there’s plenty beyond even those.
Advertisement
The overall top seller for the weekend was the deep blue 1955 Jaguar D-Type Roadster that RM Sotheby’s sold for $21,780,000, which was slightly below initial estimates.
