WORDS: JOHN MAYHEAD | PHOTOS: MECUM
The world’s largest collector car auction isn’t in Monterey, Paris or London. It’s in a city of just 80,000 people in the middle of Florida, and it takes place in the depths of winter. Quite how Mecum Kissimmee became the 13-day, 4000-vehicle, $224m sale that it is today is a discussion for another time, but while there was something in every price range (including an amazing 524 different Corvettes), one marque dominated the headlines: Ferrari. This year, Mecum offered three Enzo-era cars from the Scuderia valued at over $15m, the first time the auction house has featured such a group of showstoppers on the bill.
A one-of-three 1964 275 GTB/LM Competizione Speciale, essentially the successor to the 250 GTO, attracted a lot of interest, but bidding stopped short of its reserve at $23m – some way off the $26.4m the same car sold for at Monterey ten years ago.
The other two top Ferraris were both from the collection of Dr Rick Workman. A silver 275 GTS/4 NART Spyder was the ninth of ten commissioned by New York Ferrari dealer and owner of the North American Racing Team (NART) Luigi Chinetti. A NART Spyder has not sold at public auction in more than a decade, and the last one that did brought $27.5m. In Kissimmee, the NART hit $23.5m on the block and was reported not sold, but Mecum currently reports a sale pending for the car at an unconfirmed price. We’ve heard rumours that a $22m offer was turned down, but a post-block sale in the $20m range still counts as a sale, and would be between the NART Spyder’s condition no. 2 (Excellent) and condition No. 3 (Good) value in the Hagerty Price Guide.
The 250 GT California Spyder, meanwhile, ticked a lot of the right boxes. As a short-wheelbase (SWB) car with covered headlights, it wears the most attractive bodywork in a series of universally gorgeous cars, and it was represented as the very last of the only 106 total Cal Spyders built from 1957-63. Despite its 20-year-old-plus restoration and a colour change (delivered with a black interior, it now has tan trim), it sold for an impressive $17.875m, which is well above the car’s condition no.1 (Concours) value.
The tally of these big hitters – one well sold, one miss and one reported post sale – is almost irrelevant. The important thing is that Mecum Kissimmee can attract such cars and continues to grow, something the other January auction event in Scottsdale has seen little of in recent years.
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