Cars

With only five H.J. Mulliner-bodied Bentley S1 Drophead Coupés ever produced in left-hand drive, it’s little wonder that they were the preserve of the world’s elite. Were you asked to link a specific personage to the latter in the 1950s, a suitable choice would be someone with the surname Rockefeller – indeed, this car was ordered new by John D. Rockefeller Junior through the official Rolls-Royce agency for the greater New York area.

Even before the last Bugatti Veyron, chassis number 450, left the Molsheim factory back in February, a heated discussion had built up among collectors and experts: would the 16-cylinder sports car with its 1,000HP-plus and numerous speed records become a collectable that – as with the McLaren F1 from the 1990s – would continue to gain in value? A glance at the auction results from recent years fuels the speculation: in 2012, RM Auction

A few years after purchasing the Bentley brand new in 1965, Richards became embroiled in a drug scandal following a police raid on a party at his country home. In order to escape the resulting media attention, he decided to take the car he affectionately christened ‘Blue Lena’ – complete with a retro-fitted secret compartment for the band’s stash – on an 1,800-mile road trip to Marrakech.

Spearheading the sale is a 1960 Porsche 718 RS 60 (chassis 718-044) campaigned by the factory team at Le Mans, Sebring, the Nürburgring, and the Targa Florio, and driven by the likes of Sir Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, Jo Bonnier, Edgar Barth, and Hans Herrmann.

This 1981 BMW M1 is by far the most expensive example of Bavaria’s sole supercar we’ve ever come across. Good road cars tend to change hands for around half of the 850,000 euros being asked for by Münster-based marque specialist Mint Classics for this one. So what’s so special about it?

Most could only dream of owning a Prancing Horse at such a tender age, but ordering a brand-new four-cam Ferrari 275 GTB was not to be Deryk Haithwaite’s first experience of Ferrari ownership. He had previously owned a shortnose two-cam 275 and, after finding himself in the fortunate financial position of being able to afford the more powerful variant, he placed the order through the UK Ferrari concessionaire, Colonel Ronnie Hoare.

From Roman war paint to national racing colour

The brainchild of Luc Donckerwolke, Lamborghini’s then-head of design, the wild Concept S made its debut in non-running, concept form at the 2005 Geneva motor show, where its reception was said to be so overwhelmingly positive that a fully operational (and road-legal) prototype was built to gauge customer demand properly.

Singers make noise in the Capital