RM Sotheby’s London sale 2024 provided an end-of-season cause for cheer: with 82 percent of cars sold and a total of £17,435,275 spent, it proved to be the UK’s largest sale of the year.
Held in the palatial Peninsula London hotel on the edge of Hyde Park, it was certainly the right level of glamour. While the key lots held station in and around the auction room itself, the Williams F1 car greeting people in the downstairs lobby only added to the auction’s sense of theatre.
It certainly pulled in the punters, with a packed auction auditorium – and the important cars largely sold within their pre-estimate windows. However, much like a good theatre show, there were a few dramas – and in the main it was the British cars that suffered the biggest tragedies, leading to around 75 percent of the cars offered selling below their low estimate, with a shade under 40 percent offered at no reserve.
The leading car in the RM Sotheby’s sale was a 1955 Jaguar D-type that had been converted to XKSS specification in 1958 (pictured above). It was later the recipient of a factory-fitted 3.8-litre XK engine, and would spend much of the 1960s hillclimbing in the UK and Australia. Restored in the 1970s upon its return to the UK, it would form part of the Corser Collection, and would later move through two German collections before it was acquired by the vendor in 2017. It failed to sell, with the maximum bid of £8m shy of the £9m-£11m estimate.
The biggest result came via a non-cat, non-adjustable suspension 1989 Ferrari F40 that was originally sold to Italy (main image). Against a £1.85m-£2m estimate, it sold for £1,973,750. Of the eight Ferraris up for grabs at RM Sotheby’s London sale, six sold. One of the highlights was the above 1964 205 GT/L (chassis 5913), which had originally been sold via Luigi Chinetti’s New York dealership. After spending time in California, it would eventually be owned by Mel Farrar, owner of Farrar Precision Engineering in Sheffield, England. Recently restored to its original hue of Grigio Argento after spending much of its life in red, it was estimated at £1.1m-£1.3m, and sold for £1,146,875.
Other Enzo-era sales of note included a 1965 Ferrari 275 GTB (chassis 06705), which sold for £1,748,750 against an estimate of £1.7m-£1.9m, and a 1966 330 GTC, which sold for £376,250 against an estimate of £380k-£460k. A 1990 Testarossa formerly owned by then-Ferrari Formula 1 driver Nigel Mansell sold for £172,500 against a £135k-£165k estimate.
The auction was notably full of British classics, largely pre-1960s, and many of them were in need of some sort of fettling. The auction scene has been filled with such cars for the past few years thanks to a Middle East collection selling up, and such a huge glut of cars meant many lower estimates were missed by wide margin. A 1959 Aston Martin DB Mark III restoration project estimated at £80k-£120k sold for just £40,250, while a 1935 Bentley 3½ Litre Airline Coupé by Freestone and Webb project sold for £52,900 against an £80k-£130k estimate. Things didn’t get a lot better for more complete British cars – the above 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental All-Weather Tourer by Hooper & Co built for noted marque aficionado sold for £180k against an estimate of £320k-£420k, and a 1953 Bentley R-type DHC sold for £97k against a £120k-£150k estimate.
Looking around the cars on the preview day, it was clear that much of the interest lay elsewhere other than the British machinery. Perhaps there’s a greater appetite for this era of British car abroad than there is in their homeland?
It wasn’t all grim news for British marques, with a 1967 Rolls-Royce Phantom V Touring Limousine. Selling for £178,250 against a £120k-£140k estimate, while a 1954 Bentley R-type Continental Fastback Sports Saloon by HJ Mulliner hit its mark at £488,750 (est: £480k-£600k), a 1958 Bentley S1 Continental Drophead Coupé by Park Ward got close to low estimate, selling for £736,250 (est: £750k-£950k).
Perhaps an indicator for the way things may be going, the above 2000 Aston Martin Vantage Le Mans V600 sold for £314,375 against a £250k-£300k estimate. The 37th of 40 built, and one of 18 in right-hand-drive form, it’d had a full engine rebuild in 2012, along with a retrim. These cars have had a challenging time, with several sat unsold at dealers for months at a time – could this result be an indicator of an upsurge of interest for these 200mph machines?
The current belles of the auction balls tend to be cars wearing Mercedes-Benz badges, and this auction proved no different – with special SLR McLarens proving to be in demand. One of 25 2006 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Edition models sold for £623,750 against a £500k-£700k estimate, a 2009 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series estimated at £300k-£350k sold for £331,250 and a 1968 Mercedes-Benz 280 SL sold for £74,750 against a £60k-£80k estimate.
However, the most important Mercedes-Benz was the 1954 300 SL Gullwing pictured above. Displayed on the marque’s stand at the 1954 Earls Court Motor Show, it was originally set to be F1 team boss Rob Walker’s car – but a member of company staff crashed it. It was returned to Germany and repaired, and later sold to Carr & Co’s Noel Carr, a racing driver heir to the Carr’s Biscuits fortune. It would later be sold to a Charles Gardner, who kept it in a barn at his apple farm for 20 years. It would later spend time in France with his daughter, and then returned to the UK in 2000 with Mr Gardner’s son. Restored between 2005 and 2010, it was estimated at between £1.05m and £1.3m, but eventually sold for £1.445m.
One of the most fascinating cars in the sale was another model with a Rob Walker connection – one of two Delahaye 135 S Works competition cars, it had been raced by the likes of Albert Divo, Arthur Dobson, Prince Bira, Tony Rolt and Stirling Moss, although its most notable racing event was the 1939 Le Mans 24 Hours. Driven for much of the race by Rob Walker after his co-driver was severely burned, he brought it home in eighth place – having had his feet cooled by water at each pitstop, being propped up by Champagne and changing his suit from evening attire to morning attire at the appropriate time mid-race.
Walker would later buy the car, and it remained in the family collection. With plenty of interest pre-sale, and against an estimate of between £1m and £1.5m, it sold for £1,096,250.
Further details
For more information on the sale, head here.
