The “missing link” Jaguar fetches $5 million at at Bonhams & Butterfields’ Quail Lodge Sale in California last week. This car sets a new record for Jaguar prices, but falls short of the ultra-exclusive Bugatti Type 57C Atalante that sold for $7.92 over the weekend a few miles up the road in Pebble Beach.
This Jag is the 1960 E2A prototype racer that bridged the gap between the champion D-Type and legendary E-Type. Renowned race drivers Dan Gurney and Walt Hansgen turned the wheel of this car at the 1960 Le Mans. It was raced under Briggs Cunningham’s race team, and the car still carries the team’s white with blue stripes colors today. Unfortunately the car never finished the race when the head gasket failed. The one-of-a-kind racer did go on to victory in the 1960 race in Bridgehampton, New York.
It was a big weekend for Bugattis at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The first Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport 16.4, which made its debut at the show, had a hammer price of $2.9 million at the Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach auction yesterday. Although the final price will be confirmed later today, this could mean that it is likely as much as $850,000 (the excess of the Veyron’s MSRP) will be donated to the Pebble Beach Company Foundation charity.
The Grand Sport features a see-through removable roof panel made from polycarbonate material for lightweight rigidity. Unfortunately there is no place to store the panel on the car, so if the weather turns bad, owners may need to use the included “umbrella” fabric top (much like the one used for the Lamborghini Murcielago roadster.)
The biggest changes to take the Veyron topless were stiffening the carbon fiber body and changing the windshield angle. The car now also includes new LED headlamps, different alloy wheels and a rear view camera display. According to Bugatti, the total production run for the Veyron Grand Sport will be 150 vehicles.
If the Veryon Grand Sport was the Bugatti to steal everyone’s hearts, then the 1939 Bugatti Type 57C Atalante Coupe stole their wallets. The classic Bugatti set a new Pebble Beach record at Gooding & Company’s Saturday auction at $7.92 million. The car is one of 95 57Cs produced during the run from 1937 to 1940. The 3,257 CC Supercharged Inline Eight-Cylinder Engine is rated at 160 BHP At 5,000 RPM.
Bugatti Veryon Grand Sport sells at Pebble Beach, another Bugatti sets auction record Picture Gallery
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Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the ultimate automotive show. For a true enthusiast having a car on the lawn at Pebble beach can rank higher than the birth of a child. To be one of the rare winners may the single greatest moment in an enthusiast’s life. The showcase has traditionally been reserved for automotive time capsules that are restored to a condition as if they were factory fresh. But now intruding on this automotive aristocracy are unrestored riffraff.
Pebble Beach is starting to understand that history is preserved in the unpolished automotive gems, and no car shows this better than the Porsche No. 1.
As the name would suggest, it was the first car built under the Porsche name, and it will be featured this August at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
No. 1 has obvious ties to the entire Porsche bloodline. From the 356 to today’s 911, it shows that Porsche’s cars never changed; they just evolved.
>> read Thirty years ago, BMW set the world on fire with the 3.5-liter mid-engine M1. BMW built it with racing in mind, and even created the Procar race series exclusively for modified versions of the car. Four years and a little over 450 vehicles later, the dream was over. Now to celebrate the anniversary, BMW is hitting the track with ten of the M1 Procar Championship Series cars at the Hockenheimring in Munich, Germany, on July 19 and 20. Until then enjoy some new footage of the road car taking a few laps at the Nürburgring and some classic footage of the Procar Series in Monaco.
This year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Jaguar will celebrate XK’s 60th anniversary. At the event Jaguar will bring the XKR-S, two XK 120’s, the historic ’NUB’ and ’LWK’ and an XK 140. Another special model will be the long-nose Jaguar D-type, famous for winning Le Mans in 1957.
Jaguar’s fastest ever production XK – the XKR-S – will grace the Goodwood hill in the supercar run throughout the weekend. This limited edition vehicle is powered by Jaguar’s acclaimed 4.2-litre V8 supercharged engine and is capable of 0-60mph in 4.9 seconds and a top speed of 174mph. The XKR-S is for the true Jaguar enthusiast, delivering a combination of high speed performance, dynamic excellence and crafted luxury that is unique to Jaguar.
The record-breaking XK 120 ’Montlhéry’ Fixed Head Coupe is one of the three 1950s XK’s to take part in the ’Classic Endurance Cars’ hill climb. This car is famous for its part in the ’Seven Days and Seven Nights’ event where it was driven by Stirling Moss, Bert Hadley, Jack Fairman and Leslie Johnson. It averaged 100.31mph (161.43km/h) for seven days and nights covering 16,851 miles.
The fixed head coupe will be joined by ’NUB 120’, the XK 120 that is recognised for establishing Jaguar’s motor sport credentials. ’NUB 120’ was privately owned and campaigned by Ian Appleyard and his wife Patricia, Sir William Lyons’ daughter, who acted as navigator.
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Audi Tradition is marking this year’s Festival of Speed at Goodwood, England (July 11 to 13, 2008) with a world debut. At the largest classic car racing event in the world, the Ingolstadt company will be taking the wraps off an absolutely authentic reconstruction of the original Auto Union "Silverarrow" Type D Dual Compressor from 1939.
Construction of this racing car, the original version of which won two Grand Prix races at the hands of H.P. Müller and Tazio Nuvolari, took four years. The "Silverarrow" will be taken on its maiden drive by Nick Mason, the Pink Floyd drummer, in front of some 150,000 spectators at Goodwood.
When Auto Union was broken up by the occupying Soviet forces in East Germany after the Second World War, not only were all Auto Union racing cars lost. Most of the technical documents, too, vanished without trace. The Type D racing car is the last version of the Auto Union "Silverarrow" cars (1934 to 1939) to be developed by Auto Union’s Racing Division in Zwickau. In an effort to make the 420 hp twelve-cylinder engine in the Type D even faster, the single-compressor version from 1938, the year it made its debut, mutated into a dual-compressor version. This boosted the power output by 65 horsepower, but also necessitated various modifications to the body.
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Halicki Films Company, producer of the motion picture "Gone in 60 Seconds," is pleased to announce that Classic Recreations has been selected as the exclusive, first ever, officially-licensed custom fabricator to build the iconic "Eleanor" Mustang from "Gone in 60 Seconds." "Eleanor" captured everyone’s hearts in her reprisal role in the 2000 feature film "Gone in 60 Seconds," starring with her leading man, Nicolas Cage. Now, for the very first time, movie fans and Mustang enthusiasts alike can own their own authentic, officially-licensed "Gone in 60 Seconds Eleanor" collectible vehicle.
The recent production of the 1967 Mustang Fastback bodies licensed and authorized by Ford has streamlined the customizing process so that those who desire their own movie star car can purchase a brand-new "Eleanor" Mustang fabricated from the ground up with all new body and parts. Customers may also choose to modify one of Classic Recreations’ 1967 original Mustang bodies with all new parts. In either case, the Classic Recreations team will work tirelessly at each step of the process to provide absolute customer satisfaction and complete reliability.
Customers wishing to purchase an "Eleanor" will have their choice between the 535-horsepower FI Model, promising estimated top speeds of 172 mph and 4.90-second 0-60-mph quarter-mile times priced at $139,900, or the 770-horsepower FIS Model ($189,900) with a modified rear suspension.
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Car enthusiasts and Ferrari collectors from across the globe descended on Maranello, Italy this past weekend for RM Auctions’ second annual "Ferrari Leggenda e Passione" auction event to witness a new auction record established for a 1961 Ferrari California Spyder formerlly owned by actor James Coburn. The rare car exceeeded all expectations by selling for a world record auction price for a vintage car at auction in the amount of $10,894,900 U.S., surpassing the previous record set at Sotheby’s Monaco in 1990 for a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO at $10,756,000 U.S.
The annual RM Ferrari auction held in association with Sotheby’s, put under the hammer an unrivalled collection of historic Ferraris at the legendary home of Ferrari in Maranello, Italy. Among the attendees was one extremely well known Ferrari enthusiast, and British television and radio personality Chris Evans. Chris, accompanied by his wife, golf pro and writer Natasha Shishmanian, attended the Gala reception on Saturday, May 17th where he fell for the considerable charms of a black 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder. The following day, Chris made the successful bid for his dream machine, which will now take pride of place in his own celebrated collection and the honor of "the most valuable car sold in auction history."
With the countdown underway to this weekend’s much-anticipated ‘Ferrari Leggenda e Passione’ event, RM Auctions, in association with Sotheby’s, is excited to announce the inclusion of a grand prix winning 1964 Ferrari 250 LM to the auction line-up. This ultra-desirable example will be just one of over 45 of the world’s rarest and most sought after road and race Ferraris to cross the block on Sunday 18th May at the legendary Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy. The auction will also present a series of memorabilia from the famed Jacques Swaters’ Ferrari Francorchamps Collection.
With the final countdown well underway to Sunday’s much anticipated Ferrari Leggenda e Passione auction event in Maranello, Italy, RM Auctions is delighted to announce an important inclusion to the auction line-up – a legendary, grand-prix winning 1964 Ferrari 250 LM.
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Since the first auction in 2000, the specialist auctioneer Bonhams has sold more than £14m worth of Aston Martins and related automobilia often at record-breaking levels. In 2007 a 1970 Aston Martin DB6 Mk2 Volante sympathetically restored by Works Service achieved a record price of £430,500.
The continued success of the event has been due to the number of interesting cars with fascinating histories that are presented for auction. This year is no exception with a record 41 cars entered into the auction; amongst the most notable being lot 345 a 1961 Aston Martin DB4 GT Coupé, arguably the most sought after of the David Brown Aston Martin road cars.
”We are delighted that the Bonhams’ auction at Aston Martin has become such a prominent fixture on the international calendar of classic car sales,” said Kingsley Riding-Felce, Aston Martin’s Director of Works Service and Customer Care. “We’ve hosted the event at Newport Pagnell for the past eight years with a growing number of owners and enthusiasts from around the world joining us. The success grows each year and this year’s record list of entrants promises to give us yet another exceptional year.”
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