Chris Evans’ Ferrari 250GT SWB ‘Alloy’ Berlinetta Recreation, which started life as a 250GTE 2+2 in 1963, was driven across the Bonhams stage at the Goodwood Revival into new ownership for £606,500 with premium. His 328GTS Targa supplied to F1 team driver Nigel Mansell in 1989 also sold for £130,300. Whereas the newly crowned Top Gear host’s three higher priced Ferraris – a 1971 275GTB/6C, a 1971 365GTS/4 Daytona Spider and a 1963 250GT Lusso – all failed to attract the £1.3-2.6m apiece required.
The highest priced car to be driven past the rostrum into the £12.7m results was a previously rebuilt 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Convertible sold for £1,087,900
New mega prices at auction were paid however for the motoring DJ’s XK SS 3.8, which employed a 1967 donor Jag during recreation by Lynx in 1988. Formerly cruised by fellow petrol-head Nicholas Cage, the utterly convincing Rep raised £359,900 here. His ex-Met Police 1964 Daimler SP250 police car meanwhile achieved £82,140, a new world auction record for a grp-bodied Dart.
The highest priced car to be driven past the rostrum into the £12.7m results was a previously rebuilt 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Convertible sold for £1,087,900 with premium, a mid-estimate valuation by all concerned. A 1936 Donington race winning 1935 Ulster with Bertelli 2/4-Seater Tourer coachwork fetched £740,700. A 1967 DB6 Vantage made a more than top estimate £303,900 and a 1958 DB Mk3 went for £186,300, within forecast money. All the Aston Martins offered sold therefore, compared to 60% of Ferraris, including a 1993 F40 sold afterwards for £740,000, and 44% of Porsches in the catalogue.
There were buyers for all three Scarab race cars and their matching colours co-ordinated ex-Maserati Fiat Bartoletti Tipo 642 Diesel transporter, which was employed on location for Steve McQueen’s Le Mans movie in a former life, and which realised a quite extraordinary £656,700. Not very far behind, the 1960 Scarab-Offenhauser F1 chassis 001 sold for £673,500.
The other eyebrow raising price for market analysts was the £680,000 that had to be bid, £763,100 including premium, to secure the 1963 Bentley 3 Continental Flying Spur by HJMPW that provided the favourite wheels for many a levitating trip, notably to Marrakech, for the infamous owner of ‘Blue Lena’, Rolling Stone Keith Richards.
Among the 57 classics to change addicts beside the Goodwood circuit this year, 69% of the 83 offered, were the inevitable restoration projects, which, in a world full of instant gratification, continue to appeal to investors in futures. For a long-dormant 1937 BMW 328 Cabrio project that had been driven from Prague to the UK to escape the Soviets in 1968 was taken on for £326,300. Whilst £100,060 was available for a 1960 Maserati 3500GT project with engine turning freely and £96,700 was needed to secure a running 1961 Jaguar E Type S1 3.8 FHC with ‘Flat Floors’ from 30 years of Australian storage.
Fortuitously, and seemingly regardless of economic reality, there would still appear to be no shortage of international enthusiasm to return such sorry automotive migrants to the highway. On a Saturday afternoon at nostalgic Goodwood airfield, which was overflown by Spits and Hurricanes as it was in WW2, none other than Nigel Farage was present in the auction tent to witness their salvation and a growth sector in the economy at work and play.