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| David Gooding and Charlie Ross sell the 1974 Intermeccanica Indra |
Take the record-setting 250 Testa Rossa off Gooding’s 2011 results and you are still left with nearly $62m of ‘other’ sales – a quite extraordinary sum.
Okay, it helps if the catalogue is packed with blue-chip investor cars from Ferrari, Mercedes and Porsche, but the tiny percentage of ‘Not Solds’ impresses, as do the generally high prices for what, just a couple of years ago, might have been considered ‘mainstream’ collectors’ cars.
Entries such as the 1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Veloce ($93,500), the 1956 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia ($67,100) and the 1952 Jaguar XK 120 Fixed Head Coupé, at $176,000, which stormed over its upper estimate.
But it’s the ‘big’ cars that make the headlines so, in addition to the $16,390,000 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, what else was there? Cars from Maranello traditionally form the bedrock of top-level Pebble-week sales. No surprises, then, at the $1,540,000 achieved by the alloy-bodied, for-restoration 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB, or the $3,355,000, 1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider.
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| 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa - Sold for $16,390,000 | 1964 Aston Martin DB5 - Sold for $687,500 |
But $748,000 for the 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO set a new world record for the model, as did $1,567,500 for the 1953 Siata 208 S Spider and $165,000 for a very nice, it has to be said, 1971 Porsche 911 E Coupé.
Records also tumbled when the bidding finished on the 1931 ‘Whittell Coupé’ Duesenberg Model J. The successful bidder paid (with premium) an eye-watering $10,340,000 for the honour of owning the most expensive Duesenberg bought at auction.
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| From left to right: 1961 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster ($852,500), 1957 Mercedes-Benz 190 SL Roadster ($52,800), 1953 Aston Martin DB 2/4 ($203,500) |
Elsewhere in the catalogue, the much-fancied ‘preservation class’ 1960 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster went for $962,500 (a world record for the type and the most beautifully patinated car), the 1964 Porsche 904 Carrera GTS $1,210,000 and the 1963 Shelby Cobra 289 Factory Team Car $2,585,000.
Were the (mythical, sadly) Classic Driver garage not already bursting at the seams, any one of these could have graced it with honour.
The Gooding sale closes the Monterey car week and does have the advantage of selling cars to those who have come to the area determined to add to their collections, yet have so far failed to buy. That said, this year’s sale was particularly successful and one wonders how these figures can be improved upon in 2012. But we say that every year and they usually do.
Please click HERE to see the full results.
For further information, visit www.goodingco.com.
Text: Steve Wakefield
Photos: Classic Driver
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