Well, it was auctioned off today at the Red Gate Gallery in Beijing for a whopping $1.75 million. Unfortunately, the identity of the winning bidder was withheld so we have no idea who he was, although, we do know that he’s probably rich enough to afford paying for this car.
If you recall, this uber-rare Ferrari, which incidentally was based from a limited edition 599 that is going to be exclusively sold in China, was designed by Mr. Hao with pottery patterns from the legendary Song Dynasty.
While the one-off 599 was the highlight of the auction, other Ferrari items were also up for bids, including racing overalls worn by Giancarlo Fisichella, as well as a helmet and model car that has been signed by no less than seven-time F1 world champion, Michael Schumacher.
The auction was done as part of a fund-raising where proceeds generated by the auction would go to the funding of a number of students and teachers from the Department of Automotive Engineering at Tsinghua University. These select group of students and teachers will be given the opportunity to go on a trip to the land of the Prancing Horse – Italy – where they’ll be given a chance to study at Politecnico di Milano University and take up an internship job at Ferrari.
While most of us are drooling over the prospect of driving off into the sunset with the supercar of our dreams, two people who attended the recent RM Auction in London went home with their own supercars that they can now proudly call their own.
Two of the main attractions at the said auction were a pair Mercedes-Benz CLK GTRs – one was a 2005 Coupe version and the other was of the 2006 Roadster variety. Expensive and rare – only 20 coupes and five roadsters were ever built – at the same time, the CLK GTRs sold for a combined £1.1 million – a ‘somewhat’ bargain price considering the ‘beyond exclusive’ tag attached to these two cars.
While the two new – and lucky – owners of these cars were not identified, we do know that the 2005 CLK GTR Coupe sold for £522,500 while the 2006 Roadster version fetched a pretty cool £616,000.
It also goes without saying that the GTRs are not your prototypical Mercedeses. Fine-tuned by no less than HWA, the cars come with a 6.9-liter V12 engine that’s capable of churning out up to 612 horsepower. In addition to that, the two models also came with reinforced features including a six-speed sequential manual gearbox, a dual independent double-wishbone suspension, and carbon fiber brakes.
For the record, we don’t have that kind of money so the very idea of purchasing these cars shall, and will forever be a pipe dream for us. But in the wishful scenario that we did have £1.1 million to throw around, then investing on not one, but two cars of this stature is something that we’d also do in a heartbeat.
To be clear, the original Bumblebee was a Volkswagen Beetle so we’ll get that matter-of-fact statement out of the way.
What we are talking about of course was the first incarnation of Bumblebee in the movie Transformers and if you’ve seen the movie, you know it’s not the 2010 Chevy Camaro but rather a dilapidated looking 1977 Camaro. We’re saying all of this because it’s been brought to our attention that the said car – yes the one that chased Sam Witwicky while he was riding his mother’s pink bicycle – is now up for sale.
The car, naturally, is far from peak condition, but it does have all the necessary equipment to make it functional. Plus, it also comes with a certificate of authenticity from Bay Films, which means that this specific car was, in fact, the one that was used in the first movie and the very same one Mikaela (Megan Fox) called a ‘piece of crap Camaro’forcing Bumblebee to upgrade his model.
We don’t have a price on the car yet, but we’re hearing that it’s being sold for around $12,000 – to $15,000. Considering the world-wide fame – or notoriety – this car was able to garner from being in the movie, we think that it’s a bargain worth looking into.
Monterey has always been one of the biggest car auction weekends in the world. This year’s event, which recently concluded last August 13-15, saw a total of 836 cars of all varieties being held up for auction.
Of the 836 cars, 558 were sold for a total of $118,296,823. While the numbers are impressive in all aspects, this year’s figure was actually 17 percent less than what the event took last year ($138,996,425)
It has been a week since the Champagne poured and the confetti flew over the 18th green at the world’s greatest car show, Pebble Beach, and the event’s official auction house, Gooding & Company, has just finished tallying their sales receipts to find out that they moved over $50 Million worth of classic cars selling 129 lots, two of which sold over $4 Million each and setting three world records over the Monterey weekend.
The star of the show happened to be Lot 135, a silver 1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider that sold for a record $5,115,000 on Sunday followed by a beautiful 1933 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Drop Head Coupe which went home with a new owner for $4,180,000. Guests at the auction on Sunday night were also privy to the sale of the very first Bentley Mulsanne which sold for half a million dollars.
Bentley’s newest luxury sedan, which is proclaimed to be the “pinnacle” of high end automobiles, made its debut at the 2009 Pebble Beach Concours. The car is named after the infamous 200+ MPH straight at the Circuit de la Serthe at Le Mans. The Mulsanne is set to replace the dearly departed Arnage and is being billed as the up-and-coming challenger to the Rolls-Royce Phantom for luxury car supremacy. It looks like we will have to wait until the world’s greatest car show rolls around again next year to see if any more of these records can be broken.
Sometimes, when you see a bargain staring at you right in the face, you’d be a fool to not bite on it, especially when you consider that the said bargain appeared in one the most successful movies in history and could fetch you twice – or maybe more – as much money down the road.
The car is a 4.6-liter V8 2005 Saleen S281 Extreme or, in the case of this ride, is more popularly known as Barricade, the card-carrying member of the evil Decepticons from the blockbuster movie, Transformers. The lucky collector who scooped up this beautiful ride got it for a tremendous bargain of only $36,000, which, if you’re curious to know, is exponentially smaller than the estimated price tag of $100,000 - $300,000 it was estimated to be.
Not that the collector had any problems with it. In addition to purchasing it at a discount, the lucky fellow should be ecstatic to know that only three of these cars were ever made and that it was fully customized to the brim not just by Saleen but by Dreamworks SKG as well. The best part is, the car has only logged about 4,550 miles on the odometer with most of it, we can imagine, used while chasing down Sam Witwicky and the galaxy-saving Autobots.
It didn’t take long for the 2011 Bentley Mulsanne to make an impression to car enthusiasts, did it?
Only a few hours removed from its unveiling at Pebble Beach, Bentley’s new flagship luxury car has already found a buyer willing to pay a cool $500,000 – with proceeds going to the Pebble Beach charity - for a chance to own the first Mulsanne ever produced after ‘chassis No1’ Mulsanne auctioned off at the Gooding & Company auction.
The Mulsanne, which is set to replace the dearly departed Arnage, is being billed as the up-and-coming challenger to the Rolls-Royce Phantom for luxury car supremacy and with car No. 1 being sold for half a million, the Mulsanne has served its notice to the Phantom. It has arrived and it’s ready for battle.
With the first Mulsanne already sold, the lucky buyer has around a year’s worth of bragging rights considering that his Mulsanne will be the only one out on the road until the rest of the cars go on sale around the summer of 2010.
The auction house Gooding & Company did alright for themselves this past Saturday the evening before the highly anticipated Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, selling an impressive 83% of all their lots earning more than $21 Million. The star of the block was a red 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider that sold for $2,750,000. There were also a few records set that evening, with the 1953 Aston Martin DB 2/4 Drop Head Coupe that went for $1,650,000, and the 1953 Jaguar XK120 SE Roadster that sold for $192,500. On a more technical note, the 1938 Buick Limited Series 80 Opera Brougham only set a record for pre-war Buicks at $506,000.
Aside from the record breaking Aston Martin and Ferrari’s, the crowd in attendance was eager to catch a glimpse of Lot 31, Ettore Bugatti’s own 1938 Bugatti Type 57C Special Coupe. Originally assembled as a birthday present for Le Patron, founder of the ultra exotic car company, this particular Type 57C has been deemed as one of the automaker’s most cherished creations. The factory’s workers even went to great lengths to protect the Bugatti during World War II, the fighting between that Allied Forces and the Axis Powers ended up destroying the factory in Molsheim, France.
Even after Ettore’s death in 1947, the 57C was meticulously maintained and continued to receive updates as they were developed. The car is said to be extremely unique, with a distinct engine and transmission package, upgrades to the interior and one-off coachwork that is believed to be based on the last design ever created by Ettore’s son, Jean Bugatti who died at the age of 30 in an unfortunate incident, test driving a Le Mans winning Type 57 tank-bodied race car. Making for one very interesting conversation piece.
At any car auction, a 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe is expected to fetch a hefty sum of money. After all, it’s not that often where one of these extremely rare cars become up for grabs.
The recent Mecum Auction in Monterey, California saw six 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupes go up for auction with one of them fetching a bid of a staggering $7.25 million – the largest ever bid for a US car at any auction in history. The auction, which was held as part of the festivities of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, attracted a huge audience, some of which were serious bidders while others were only there to enjoy the occasion.
While there were a host of rare and vintage cars that also went up for auction, the clear star of the event was none other than the Cobra Coupe, specifically, the CSX2601, which is only one of just six models build by Carroll Shelby in an effort to go head-to-head with the Ferraris during the FIA World Manufacturers Championship. Now, 44 years after the car won the World Manufacturers Championship in 1965 in Reims, France, it was sold in the US for a whopping $7.25 million.
It goes without saying that the amount of money spent purchasing this one-of-a-kind car goes a long way in validating its legacy as a classic must-have among car enthusiasts, regardless of generation.
A few weeks ago, we talked about a fully-customized 2009 Ford Mustang GT that was created especially for the Experimental Aircraft Association’s “Gathering of Eagles”. The car, which was called the AV-X10 Dearborn Doll, came with a glut of performance enhancements including a 550hp (410kW) supercharger kit, a high-flow FR500S exhaust system, a short throw shifter, a new handling pack featuring dampers, lowering springs and an anti-roll bar, not to mention, of course, the star-designed glass roof on top of the car.
We’re going back to this because the car was recently auctioned off at the 2009 EAA Air Venture Oshkosh fly-in convention, which was held in Wisconsin from July 27 to August 2. The car went for a staggering $250,000, which ironically is smaller than the Ford AV8R that was auctioned off during last year’s event for $500,000.
Despite coming it at only half of the price of the AV8R, the proceeds from the purchase of the AV-X10 Dearborn Doll would go to the EAA’s Young Eagles program, a program that helps raise awareness and engages young people about aviation while also providing free introductory flights to nearly 1.3 million young people since 1992.
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