See this extraordinary Who’s Who auction of iconic cars
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Casting aside any false modesty, RM Sotheby’s confidently describes its forthcoming Icons auction as “the culmination of all collector car auctions in 2017”. It includes great Ferraris, Apple founder Steve Jobs’ famous BMW and a perfect E-type Jaguar: it you want to bid, have a deep bank account.
It’s being held on December 6 at the Sotheby’s global headquarters in New York as part of a week-long celebration of auction events relating to the recently created Sotheby’s Luxury Division.
As you’re about to see, the lots already confirmed are of very high quality. Nearly all are expected to be sold for six- or seven-figure sums.
1923 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Riviera
Of the ten Rolls-Royces fitted with Riviera bodies by New York coachbuilder Brewster, only this one is believed to have been based on the 40/50 Silver Ghost chassis rather than that of the later Phantom I.
Work has been done over the years to keep the car in excellent condition, but there is some doubt as to whether any of it was extensive enough to be described as a full restoration.
It was certainly “refreshed” before being displayed at the 2012 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. It appeared at the following year’s similar event in Pebble Beach before being sold to its current owner.
Estimate: $500,000-700,000 (approx. £377,000-535,000)
1948 Cadillac Series 62 Cadillac
In 1948, owning a third-generation Cadillac Series 62 was a big deal in itself, but New York furrier Louis Ritter went a step further.
He bought one of these cars and sent it to Paris to be rebodied by Saoutchik, the great coachbuilder now less than a decade away from closing down as wealthy owners lost interest in having special vehicles created just for them.
Saoutchik turned the Cadillac into something closely resembling a car it had built for the 1948 Paris Show, based on a Talbot-Lago. Ritter bought that too.
The Cadillac was restored in the late 1980s and has been kept in excellent condition ever since.
Estimate: $850,000-1,000,000 (approx. £642,000-755,000)
1952 Chrysler D'Elegance
The D’Elegance was the last in a line of Chrysler show cars. Based on a shortened New Yorker chassis, it was styled by Italian company Ghia and had a restrained Italian elegance contrasting with the American exuberance Chrysler adopted later in the 1950s.
While some concept cars are rarely seen again after appearing at one major show, the D’Elegance soon became a road-going car and had several owners, starting with the brother-in-law of a Chrysler executive.
The car has been restored and is in concours condition, but it is not entirely original. Its first engine, a Hemi V8 in a modest state of tune, was replaced over thirty years ago by a much more powerful one dating from 1956.
Estimate: $900,000-1,100,000 (approx. £680,000-830,000)
1954 Bentley R-Type Continental
The R-Type was Bentley’s second post-War model and a close relative of the Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn. The Continental was the high-performance version, of which only around 200 were built.
These were the late days of buyers commissioning special bodies for their cars. Parisian coachbuilder Franay produced five, all bearing some resemblance to the design HJ Mulliner had created for Bentley but with several detail differences.
Three were fastback coupes. Two of those were left-hand drive, and just one of the pair had a manual gearbox. This one, the first to be built, was commissioned by textile magnate Edouard Vandendriessche, who kept it for nine years, long after Franay had gone out of business.
It was shipped to the US in 1965, and was bought twelve years later by World Golf Hall of Fame member Gene Littler.
Vantage Motorworks completed a thorough restoration in time for the 2012 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, and the car has been seen in public several times since then. Today it has an uprated cylinder head and carburettors, but the originals are still available if the next owner wants to have them refitted.
Estimate: $1,000,000-1,300,000 (approx. £755,000-980,000)
1955 Mercedes 300 SL
In 1952 and 1953, Mercedes enjoyed two very successful seasons, including a one-two finish at the Le Mans 24 Hour race, with its W194 sports racing car.
The 300 SL which went into production the following year was essentially the road-going equivalent with fuel injection, more ornate styling and, surprisingly, more power. Gullwing doors, which improved access to the cockpit, were used on both cars.
The car at auction was shipped to the Mercedes distributor in New York within three weeks of being built. It later spent some time in the UK, but moved in 1989 to California, where its new owner commissioned a thorough restoration.
This lasted two years. Records of the work, which are being sold with the car, are so detailed that they even include the purchase of a new pair of overalls for the man who removed the original blue paintwork and replaced it with red.
Estimate: $1,300,000-1,500,000 (approx. £980,000-1,1300,000)
1958 Austin-Healey 100-6 'Goldie'
Without a new car to display at the 1958 London Motor Show, Healey decided after some persuasion to convert an existing one into something very special.
‘Goldie’ was an example of the company’s 100-6 model, which would go out of production the following year. It was taken from the production line and given an extreme makeover.
This included kid leather and mink upholstery, ivory steering wheel rim and switchgear, unique paintwork and an enormous amount of interior and exterior 24-carat gold. For the Show, its windscreen washer bottles were filled with champagne.
The modifications cost three times the value of the standard car. Healey got its money back by selling ‘Goldie’ to the Daily Express newspaper, which made it the prize in a readers’ competition. It has had several owners since then.
‘Goldie’ was completely restored in the mid 1980s, and more recently it was thoroughly prepared for a 2012 concours d’elegance event in Texas.
Estimate: $350,000-550,000 (approx. £270,000-420,000)
1961 Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet Series II
The long list of Ferrari 250 variants produced between 1953 and 1964 includes two Pininfarina-designed GT Cabriolets.
The first was displayed at the 1957 Geneva Show, and only around forty were built. The Series II was introduced two years later.
Technically very similar to another convertible, the 250 GT Spider California, the Cabriolet Series II was aimed at a different type of customer. Its styling was more sober and refined, the interior was more comfortable and there was more luggage space.
The Icons car was built in 1961, the second last year of production, and is in phenomenal condition.
Estimate: $1,500,000-1,800,000 (approx. £1,130,000-1,360,000)
1966 Jaguar E-Type Series 1
The E-Type was launched in 1961 with a 3.8-litre version of the famous XK six-cylinder engine. Models built between 1965 and 1967 (still known retrospectively as Series 1) looked very much the same, but the engine was enlarged to 4.2 litres, and there were many other unseen changes.
These are among the most sought-after E-Types. The one here is special for several reasons, one being that it was specially ordered with black paintwork, interior, fabric roof and hard top.
Believed to have been driven for less than 15,000 miles, partly because it spent over forty years in storage, this car is largely original, though its recent restoration included raising the gearing for a quieter driving experience.
Estimate: $250,000-325,000 (approx. £190,000-250,000)
1974 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS
Named after founder Enzo Ferrari’s late son, the Dino originally went on sale with a two-litre V6 engine which was replaced after a few years by a more powerful 2.4.
The GTS was the open-top version, far less common than the solid-roof hard top because it was in production for only half as long, from 1972 to 1974.
The car at the Icon auction was delivered to its first owner in Florida in 1974. When he sold it nine years later it had covered just 9,000 miles, and today it still has not much more than 19,000 on the clock.
An extensive bare-metal restoration was completed in 2013. The current owner has more recently spent nearly $100,000 on bringing the car back to immaculate condition, including rebuilding the brakes, suspension, cooling system and air-conditioning.
Estimate: $500,000-600,000 (approx. £377,000-453,000)
1990 Ferrari F40
Since being completed by Ferrari in October 1990 and shipped to the official distributor in Salt Lake City, Utah, this F40 has remained in North America all its life. It is mostly original, though the seats were re-upholstered in 2012.
The engine belts were replaced at the same time, and Ferrari of Vancouver gave the car a full service and inspection shortly afterwards.
Included in the lot are 16 years’ worth of invoices totalling $118,000.
Estimate: $1,200,000-1,400,000 (approx. £920,000-1,050,000)
1992 Lancia Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione
The Delta is remembered today largely because of its enormous success in rallying. Lancia won the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers and four Drivers titles between 1987 and 1992.
To make this possible, Lancia first had to build several thousand road-going examples of the turbocharged four-wheel drive hatchback. The second last of the series, and the last with a direct relation to the WRC, was the Integrale Evoluzione, which had more power and a wider body than its immediate predecessor.
Some, like the car at the Icons auction, were sold as Giallo Ferrari editions with bright yellow paintwork. This car is also unusual in that it has never been modified (as so many hot Deltas of that period have) and has covered just 6487km from new.
Estimate: $175,000-225,000 (approx. £134,000-172,000)
1995 Porsche 911 GT2
The original GT2 was built in just enough numbers as a road car to allow Porsche to run a modified version in international motorsport.
It had the same twin-turbocharged 3.6-litre engine and extended rear wheelarches as the Turbo, but only rear-wheel rather than four-wheel drive, which helped make it considerably lighter.
The GT2 was named after the racing class it competed in. There have been three successors, but they are simply named after the first one and do not have a specific motorsport connection.
Estimate: $1,100,000-1,400,000 (approx. £830,000-1,050,000)
2000 BMW Z8
The Z8 was a high-performance two-seat roadster built by BMW around the turn of the century. It featured in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, and two years later it was used as the safety car for MotoGP races.
This example is particularly special because it was bought new in 2000 by the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. Jobs liked the car (though not surprisingly he wasn’t keen on its Motorola phone) and drove it regularly before selling it in 2003.
Its fourth and current owner, based in Los Angeles, was also its second. He quickly regretted selling it to the third and bought it back 18 months later in 2006. It has been in his hands ever since.
Estimate: $300,000-400,000 (approx. £230,000-306,000)
2004 Porsche Carrera GT
Porsche intended to build a new car to race at Le Mans near the end of the 20th century, but the project was shelved.
A concept car based on it appeared at the 2000 Paris Show and attracted so much interest that Porsche decided to put a road-legal version into production.
Many thousands of Porsches, including all 911s, have famously had a flat-six engine mounted behind the rear wheels. The GT was very different, in that it had a 5.7-litre V10 mounted ahead of them.
Just under 1,300 GTs were built between 2004 and 2007. Almost exactly half of them were sold in the US.
Estimate: $775,000-850,000 (approx. £585,000-755,000)
2015 Porsche 918 Spyder
The 918 was a hybrid supercar manufactured between 2013 and 2015. It had a 4.6-litre V8 engine and two electric motors giving a total power output of nearly 900bhp.
Customers could specify a ‘Weissach package’ which was essentially a weight reduction programme. In Weissach form, the 918 could, according to Porsche, accelerate from 0-62mph in 2.6 seconds and easily exceed 200mph, yet its official combined economy figure was 94mpg.
The Weissach car at the Icons auction has had just one owner and has been driven for only 270 miles.
Estimate: $1,700,000-1,900,000 (approx. £1,300,000-1,450,000)
2016 Ferrari F12tdf
The tdf was a lighter and more powerful version of the front-engine Ferrari F12 Berlinetta. Its initials stand for Tour de France – not the bicycle race but one for cars held annually from 1899 to 1986, in which Ferrari had great success in the 50s and 60s.
One of only 799 ever built, the auction car was delivered new last year to Ferrari’s Long Island distributor, and been driven for less than 400 miles since then.
Most of the available options were selected, and the car is still barely halfway through its factory warranty, which expires in July 2019. It will remain covered by the Ferrari Genuine Maintenance programme until four years after that.
Estimate: $1,100,000-1,400,000 (approx. £830,000-1,050,000)