A RED 1957 Ferrari has become the most expensive car sold at auction after fetching $US16.4 million ($A15.7 million).
The Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa prototype, which competed in the Le Mans 24-hour race, was on the block with hundreds of other collectible cars during a series of auctions coinciding with the annual Monterey Car Week gathering in California.
Despite recent sharemarket turmoil, buyers competed aggressively for trophy autos, establishing records for cars and auction houses.
''The ultra-rich remain ultra-rich,'' said Marcel Massini, a Swiss-based Ferrari historian, who attended several auctions last week. ''The very, very best sells easily and incredibly high.''
''The stock market being volatile almost helped us,'' said Max Girardo, managing director of RM Auctions in Europe. It makes classic cars even more desirable, he said, because they are seen as safe tangible assets.
RM Auctions set a record for a Mercedes-Benz with the $US9.7 million sale of a silver 1937 540K Spezial Roadster. The same model fetched $US8.25 million four years ago, according to Mr Girardo.
One of the star lots at the auction house Bonhams, a 1925 Rolls-Royce New Phantom, custom-designed for the Bengal tiger hunting expeditions of India's Maharajah of Kotah, failed to sell. It was expected to bring $US750,000 to $US1 million.
Also unsold was a 1963 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III Drophead Coupe owned by Sammy Davis jnr, which was expected to bring between $US475,000 and $US550,000.
At another auction held by Gooding and Co, a 1931 Duesenberg, which was expected to fetch up to $US7 million, sold for $US10.34 million, topping the $US4.5 million auction record for a ''Duesy''.
The car was commissioned by Captain George Whittell jnr, who had a pet lion and a 162-square-kilometre Lake Tahoe estate. He liquidated his entire stock portfolio for $US50 million just two weeks before the 1929 crash.
At RM Auctions, Steve McQueen's slate-gray 1970 Porsche 911s, which featured in the movie Le Mans, sold for $US1.4 million, setting a record for the model at auction.
I wonder how many inches a $16 million car adds to a man's penis.
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:28 pm
by dales
If I had $16million to piss away on a car, I'd be happy with using a pair of tweezers and magnifier to answer that question.
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 12:29 am
by The Hen
I can't see the value.
I am sorry, but I am mechanically blind when it comes to automotive beauty.
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 2:12 am
by dales
It's more a function of exclusivitey, than of beauty.
True, one could say that it's a "beautiful" car (but so are dozens of other racers and exotics).
There is only one of these and somebody now has "bragging rights".
Kinda like Scooter hinted upon.
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 7:55 pm
by BoSoxGal
Scooter wrote:I wonder how many inches a $16 million car adds to a man's penis.
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 8:33 pm
by Joe Guy
This is a perfect example of the MOTU's complete disconnect from the working class. The world has gone to hell in hand basket while the rich buy and sell their toys that were constructed by indentured slaves of the lowest class who were later tossed aside and ground into meat patties to feed to the prisoners in the chain gang that digs ditches on the sides of our roads with guns aimed at their heads and whose falsely convicted brothers manufacture license plates that the rich shamelessly display on their disgustingly expensive air polluting vehicles - those chrome beasts that are belching putrid emissions that are ripping an enormous hole out of our ozone layer, in turn melting our glaciers and raising the sea level to a height that will drown the poverty stricken coast dwellers - who, by the way, are the people that built this country.
I'm an electrician. I talk to the common man. That is why I know these things.
~JG
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 9:25 pm
by Gob
I'm detecting a hint of sarcasm there Joe....
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 9:37 pm
by Joe Guy
Gob wrote:I'm detecting a hint of sarcasm there Joe....
Did you use one of these...?
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:46 am
by dales
In other words known as the steve-o-meter.
Re: Not cheap.
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:35 pm
by Scooter
dales wrote:There is only one of these and somebody now has "bragging rights".
Kinda like Scooter hinted upon.
There's a song that's sort of a propos of that:
Some men are always collecting things
Like sports cars, guns and knives
They seem to think of them
As masculine extensions of their size
