A 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing in spectacular condition led the bidding during Bonham’s inaugural Audrain Concours Auction in Newport, Rhode Island, which achieved total sales of $9,262,800, including auction fees.
Just 41 cars were offered during the boutique collector car auction, with 34 of them finding new owners for a sell-through rate of 83 percent. The sale was held at the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe
The Gullwing coupe, with its original engine and body panels and standing on its factory Rudge knockoff wheels, reached a resounding $1,556,000. The Mercedes was offered at auction by the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where it had been shown for the past decade in the school’s Classic Automobile Museum.
Other highlights of the auction included:
1963 Shelby Cobra 260
The second-most-valuable vehicle in the auction, an early 1963 Shelby Cobra 260, which achieved $728,250, is the 47th Shelby Cobra produced and powered by its original 260cid V8 from before Ford introduced its iconic 289.
A 1913 Alco Five-Passenger Touring Car, a rare antique built in Rhode Island and offered publicly for the first time, sold for $373,500.
1912 Alco 40 Tourer
A 2009 Spyker C8 Laviolette Coupé, driven just 700 miles from new, sold for $370,750.
A 1962 Aston Martin DB4 Series III saloon, which sold for $307,500, was the 1962 New York Auto Show car. The Aston is an original left-hand drive example of the Touring Superleggera sports car.
Rupert Banner, Bonhams Group Motoring director, said in a news release that the first Audrain auction had gone well and the company plans to bring it back next year.
“We are delighted with this successful debut,” Banner said. “The International Tennis Hall of Fame served up a perfect setting for the Bonhams saleroom which was busy both in the preview and during the auction.”
1933 Marmon Sixteen convertible sedan
The top-10 highest sellers during the Audrain auction were:
1. 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, sold for $1,556,000.
2. 1963 Shelby Cobra 260, sold for $728,250.
3. 1929 Bentley 4½ Liter Tourer, $651,250.
4. 1959 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud I drophead coupe, $392,750.
5. 1913 Alco Five-Passenger Touring Car, sold for $373,500.
6. 2009 Spyker C8 Laviolette Coupé, sold for $370,750.
The reborn British car company Alvis reports the completion of its first continuation car, a Graber Super Coupe, which will travel from the Alvis assembly facility in Kenilworth to Japan, where distributor Meiji Sangyo has ordered five examples for customers.
The coupe has been constructed around a NOS (new old stock) engine block and chassis, “carefully stored since the original factory closed in 1967,” Alvis reported in its announcement.
The engine, now with fuel injection and 172 horsepower and 209 pound-feet of torque, is a 3.0-liter inline-6 that Alvis said will propel the car to 60 mph in 8.9 seconds.
The aluminum-bodied car’s construction took two years, the delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Alvis said.
Alvis plans to offer six models in its continuation series, each “built to a bespoke specification with options such as air conditioning and all comply with regulations to be driven on the road. All six have been developed from original drawings and feature an in-house designed and manufactured six-inline 3.0-liter or 4.3-liter engine.
“This car draws on the new old stocks of chassis and engine blocks, carefully stored by Alvis since the Coventry factory closed in 1967.”
Next up for Alvis will be completion of the Graber Cabriolet.
Alvis said prices for its continuation cars start at £295,000 ($404,315), though the Super coupe has an MSRP of £323,000 ($442,690).
Rolls-Royce teases electric-powered Spectre
Car is hidden by words used as camouflage
Rolls-Royce has announced that its first all-electric vehicle will be badged the Spectre and it will come to market in the fourth quarter of 2023, with on-road development testing being “imminent,”
The British luxury automaker also teased the car using words as camouflage.
Rolls chief executive Torsten Müller-Ötvös said the announcement makes “the most significant day in the history of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars since 4th May, 1904. On that date, our founding fathers, Charles Rolls and Sir Henry Royce, first met and agreed that they were going to create the best motor car in the world.”
He added that Royce was fascinated by “all things electrified” back at the turn of the previous century, but that it was Rolls who had prophesied in 1900 about the future of electric vehicles.
“The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean,” Rolls said. “There is no smell or vibration, and they should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged. But for now, I do not anticipate that they will be very serviceable — at least for many years to come.”
More than a century later, Rolls-Royce announced that its entire vehicle fleet will be electric-powered by 2030.
Maybach celebrates its centennial
Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 4MATIC ‘Edition 100’
C-pillar detail on the sedan
As the Maybach brand celebrates its 100th anniversary, Mercedes-Maybach has unveiled the “Edition 100,” special versions of the S-Class and GLS models. Only 100 of each will be produced, the automaker said.
Born in 1846, Wilhelm Maybach worked with Gottlieb Daimler to develope the first Mercedes, which won at the Nice Race Week in 1901. Maybach and his son, Karl, are credited with saying,“What is good must also be beautiful,” as they established Maybach Motorenbau GmbH, displaying their first car, the W3, at the Berlin show in 1921.
In addition to its design, the car was the first German production car with 4-wheel brakes, epicyclic gears and an interior comprising “the finest materials.” Motor magazine reported “a new star in the automotive firmament is beginning to shine.”
Maybach’s luxury cars were owned by kings, industrialists and artists. After Karl Maybach’s death, Daimler-Benz AG inherited the Maybach brand.
Hennessey boosts VelociRaptor to 600 horsepower
Hennessey Performance Engineering has pumped up its version of the Ford Raptor in the form of the VelociRaptor 600, with 600 twin-turbocharged horsepower and 622-pound-feet of torque. The horsepower figure represents a 150 boost over the standard F-150 Raptor.
Hennessey says its truck will sprint to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds and can turn 12.9 in the quarter-mile drag race. It adds that its changes are covered by a 3-year/36,000-mile warranty.
The VelociRaptor 600 package costs $19,950 and includes installation, graphics, dyno and road testing.
Genesis shows electric GV60
Genesis, the luxury division of Hyundai, has revealed its GV60, its first electric car, which has a battery that the automaker says can be charged from 10 percent to 80 percent in 18 minutes.
“The GV60 is our first dedicated electric car with the most dynamic design, representing Genesis’ electrification,” said Jay Chang, global head of the brand. “It will set a new standard for luxury electric cars with a powerful driving performance and key features which are emotionally connected to customers.”
The car comes with technologies include Face Connect, which recognizes the car’s driver and unlocks the doors when the driver touches the door handle and shows his or her face to the camera in the B-pillar.
Ducati launches Multistrada V2
Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati has unveiled the Multistrada V2, which it calls “the perfect bike to experience the beauty of traveling every day.” Ducati calls the motorcycle the “360-degree bike, increasingly intuitive, comfortable, fun and accessible.”
In addition to the version powered by a 113-horsepower 937cc Testastretta 11 V2 engine, Ducati offers another with a 35 kW electric powerplant.
Your car as an Amazon delivery depot?
Delivery drivers get access to place packages in vehicles
Delivery driver taks photo of package in vehicle
Customer notified of delivery by app
Ford has launched a program in selected areas of the UK that allows parcels ordered from an online shopping site to be delivered to and placed inside a vehicle.
The Secure Delivery to Vehicle pilot program allows drivers for Hermes UK to place packages inside vehicles equipped with FordPass technology at the customer’s home. It saves the drivers time and puts packages in a secure and dry place. Customers are notified by an app of the package’s arrival, and the FordPass automatically locks the vehicle should the delivery driver forget.
If all goes well, the program will expand to deliver to vehicles parked at a customer’s place of employment.
It was 1971 at the Geneva Motor Show when Lamborghini unveiled its “idea car,” the LP 500 Countach, which quickly became the star of the show and of the sports car world.
Lamborghini set out to replace the Miura with the LP 500 Countach, but after three short years of development, the car was sacrificed in crash tests in March 1974.
“The Countach reinvented high-performance cars,” Stephan Winkelmann, chairman and chief executive of Automobili Lamborghini, says in the automaker’s news release. “It became an icon in terms of stylistic language that even today, after decades, still inspires contemporary Lamborghinis.”
Toward the end of 2017, Lamborghini customer Polo Storico asked the Italian automaker if there was any chance of reconstructing the Countach LP 500. The company said yes and began gathering drawings and the essential materials needed for such a project.
“The collection of documents was crucial,” head of service Giuliano Cassataro is quoted. “There had been so much attention paid to all the details of the car, to their overall consistency and to the technical specifications.”
The LP 500 was built on a platform chassis, different from the later Countachs built on tubular frames.
“Once the sheet metal beating phase was reached, technology gave way to the traditional Italian system, carried out by the ‘battilastra’ with his creativity and tools,” the automaker explains. “A similar process was followed for the interior, which included the lighted diagnostic instruments, as shown on the 1971 prototype.”
Lamborghini used spare and restored parts from 1971 for the mechanical components.
For design, the Lamborghini Centro Stile’s team, led by Mitja Brokert, carried on the project.
“The LP 500 is of paramount importance to Lamborghini because it gave rise to the design DNA of all subsequent models,” Brokert says. “To arrive at the car that debuted in Geneva in 1971, a 1:1 scale styling model was developed, which along with the car itself was lost over time, but extensive photographic evidence of it remains. This is the same approach with which we decided to tackle the project.
“Starting from publications of the time, from images on homologation sheets and other material recovered from Polo Storico, we were able to reconstruct the mathematics necessary for creating the first 1:1 scale model,” Brokert continues.
“The biggest challenge was to create the exact volume of the car, and for this we used the opportunity to take a 3D scan of our LP 400 (chassis 001), which was an enormous source of information. It took us 2,000 hours of work altogether to arrive at the final model, with lines that satisfied us. The exact same procedure was followed for the interior.”
Lamborghini partnered with Pirelli to reconstruct the original Cinturato CN12 tires fitted on the 1971 Countach LP 500.
When it came time to choose the color, the team carefully analyzed the original model’s paint composition to produce the same exact shade of yellow, Giallo Fly Speciale.
The other week we shared a Classic Carl cartoon that was missing a caption and asked our readers to submit their caption ideas for a chance to win a ClassicCars.com swag bag.
Out of all the clever and hilarious cartoon captions readers sent in, this one made us laugh the most. This winning caption is from Richard W. from Maryland.
And our runners-up are:
-Jeff W. from Washington
-Lee L. from Arkansas
Thank you to our winner, runners-up and all who submitted their caption ideas.
After 52 years of same family ownership — and only 32,104 miles of travel — a 1969 Lincoln Continental Mark III is the Pick of the Day, being advertised on ClassicCars.com by a private seller in Chico, California.
This is the first time the car, based sice new with the same family in the San Francisco Bay area, has been offered to another owner, according to the ad.
“Shows true pride of ownership and care,” the seller notes, adding that the car has always been sheltered in a garage when not being driven.
The car is not perfect — the air conditioning system needs work and the front-seat headrests are missing — but the car is in “original and… stunning condition,” the seller points out.
“Everything about this car is classy and gets compliments everywhere it goes.”
The 1969 model year marked the launch of Lincoln’s Mark III luxury coupe.
“It was a personal luxury car in the long-hood, short-desk tradition of the Mark I,” The Standard Catalog of American Cars notes. “The rear deck spare-tire hump was also reminiscent of the first ‘Mark’,” a reference to the original Continental of the 1940s.
The car wears its original Ivy Green paint and vinyl top, and the seats are covered in factory-installed dark Ivy Green leather.
“Dark Ivy Green Leather Interior is in perfect condition,” the seller assures. “There are no rips, tears, or damage to anything. The leather seats are perfect. The dash and gauges are perfect. The headliner is original and in great condition. All power windows and power seats are in correct working condition. Carpets are very nice.”
The engine is a 460cid V8 with a 4-barrel carburetor and 365 horsepower. The transmission is automatic and the car has power steering, brakes, windows and seats. The car also wears its original California black license plates.
“Drives like a dream,” the seller reports.
The car is being offered for $35,000. To view this listing on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.
I liked both the content and the format of Sam’s Scrapbook: My Motorsports Memories, a book published recently by England’s Evro Publishing and distributed in the US by Quarto (aka Motorbooks).
The Sam in the title is Sam Posey, artist and architect best known for his driving of racing cars and his commentating about them on television and in magazine articles.
Posey has been open about his race against Parkinson’s disease, and thus Sam’s words in the text of this scrapbook have been edited by his son, John.
The book is presented in a horizontal 8-by-11-inch format, which provides plenty of room for the photos Posey collected during his years at the wheel. The book is presented scrapbook style, even with what appears to be scotch tape securing many of those photos to the paper.
Speaking of years at the wheel, for those not familiar with the title of Posey’s 1976 autobiography, The Mudge Pond Express, the first chapter in Memories turns back the clock to Posey’s childhood when he and John Whitman raced a sled on wheels down the paved two-track that Posey’s grandfather installed between his house and the Connecticut pond.
Posey’s maternal grandfather was a New York financier and head of an insurance company. Posey’s father died in World War II and his mother let him spend part of his inheritance from his father on a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, even though Posey was only 14 years old and didn’t have a driver’s license. But he drove on an airstrip that an uncle had built.
Posey bought the 300 SL from famed racer John Fitch, and it was through Fitch that Posey began auto racing. The book shares images from Posey’s racing career and some fascinating insights into what it was like to be a driver in the 1960s and ’70s and early ’80s.
There are tales about how being fired by Roger Penske led to four years at Le Mans with Ferrari, about what it was like to do a qualifying run for the Indianapolis 500, and even about how Oldsmobile prepared a car for Posey to drive in a race around the Lime Rock track in which all cars were driven in reverse.
Posey shares delightful stories about how a team tricked him into trying to fit his tall body into Mario Andretti’s racing suit, about how Jochen Mass was so confident a car would fail that he made dinner reservations for midway through a 12-hour race at Sebring, and about the unusual circumstances that caused the throttle to stick on the Can-Am Ferrari.
The book is full of such stories, and much more, and fans of racing in the era likely will be mesmerized by the photo on page 87, which shows the drivers meeting room before an early ’70s F1 race at Watkins Glen.
As I said earlier, I not only like the presentation of the content but the format of the book itself. I’m eager for Evro to expand this scrapbook library with other racers sharing their stories, photos and career mementoes.
As Sam’s Scrapbook ends, it comes full circle, with a concluding chapter on the “Lawn Car,” a tube frame cross between a go kart and a dune buggy that Posey races on his lawn, “about 200 yards from where John Whitman and I began coasting down toward the lake in our Mudge Pond Express.”
Up for auction on AutoHunter, the online auction platform driven by ClassicCars.com, is a 1954 Chevy Bel Air customized with shaved door handles, two-tone repaint, and a replacement engine.
“The first Bel Air was launched for the 1950 model year as a full-size vehicle on the General Motors A-body platform, later receiving a facelift in 1953,” AutoHunter says in the Bel Air’s listing.
This 1954 example is finished in turquoise and accented by a white roof. Along with the door handles, the hood and decklid have been shaved. The listing notes that the brightwork and body lines also have been adjusted.
The interior houses reupholstered green and white vinyl bench seats with matching door panels, dash and carpeting. The dash features a ribbed chrome trim with a Chevrolet insignia.
Amenities include air conditioning, radio and a column-mounted aftermarket tachometer.
Power comes from a replacement 327cid V8 topped with a chrome-finished air cleaner. It’s linked to a column-shifted 3-speed Turbo 350 automatic transmission.
The odometer reads 23,000 miles, although true chassis mileage is unknown.
This Chevy Bel Air’s auction ends October 8 at 11:00 a.m. PST.
Visit the AutoHunter listing for more information and gallery of photos.
Significant rally cars, a barn-found 1903 De Dion Bouton, cars formerly owned by the Aga Khan and French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant, and a couple of limited-edition Aston Martins highlight the docket for Artcurial MotorcarsAutomobiles sure les Champs auction scheduled for October 24 in Paris.
“Let’s celebrate the Automobile in the heart of Paris,” Matthieu Lamoure, Artcurial Motorcars managing director, is quoted in the auction company’s announcement,” with a lineup of the highest caliber. Automobiles with rare histories and provenance, many offered at no reserve.”
1986 Nissan 240RS1986 Citroen BX 4TC
The rally cars include the first 1993 Subaru Impreza Prodrive 555 built by the British company to win a round of the World Rally Championship, Ari Vatanen finishing first in the 1000 Lakes Rally in 1993. The Group A racer later was driven in WRC events by Colin McRae and Richard Burns. Artcurial expects the car to sell for $525,000 to $750,000.
Also on the docket are two Group B rally cars coming out of the collection of the Manoir de l’Automobile de Lohéac museum — a 1986 Citroen BX 4TC ($295,000 to $410,000) and a 1986 Nissan 240RS, “still bearing the battle scars from various African rallies,” ($150,000 to $210,000).
In the barn
Out in the open
The barn-found 1903 De Dion Bouton was rebodied in 1910, has been owned by the same family since the 1930s, and was put away in the 1960s after taking part in a parade. The antique luxury car was then parked in a back corner of a barn and all but forgotten until being uncovered earlier this year.
Artcurial has yet to publish a pre-auction estimated value for the early motorcar.
However, it anticipates that a 2017 Aston Martin Vanquish Zagato coupe will sell for $470,000 to $700,000 and that a 2017 Aston Martin Vantage GT8 will bring $120,000 to $280,000. The Vanquish Zagato is one of only 99 produced and has been driven just 3,680 kilometers since new. The Vantage GT8 is one of 150 built.
The docket also includes a pair of Mercedes-Benz 600s with celebrity provenance, one sold new to the Aga Khan and the other to Trintigant, the famous French actor and nephew of Formula 1 racer Maurice Trintigant.
French automaker Citroen has shared its vision for the urban mobility of tomorrow, with autonomous movement around town “for everyone,” the company said of its Urban Collëctif concept vehicles, developed in partnership with hotel group Accor and outdoor advertising and street furniture specialist JCDecaux.
The project is based on the Citroen Skate platform with three service pods — Sofitel En Voyage, Pullman Power Fitness, and JCDecaux City Provider.
Sofitel En Voyage
JCDecaux City Provider
Pullman Power Fitness
“Transport is an essential requirement in daily life, especially in cities,” Citroen said in its announcement. “With their strong appeal, cities are seeing their populations increase so travel conditions need to be revamped. At the same time, the Covid-19 crisis has heightened city-dwellers’ expectations for cleaner, safer, more flexible modes of travel that comply with social distancing rules, thereby influencing the development of the urban landscape and smart mobility solutions for the future.
“The emergence of autonomous vehicles could help reduce congestion in cities; however, these solutions have no medium-term economic viability due to the high cost of autonomous driving technologies compared with uptake.”
In response, the Urban Collëctif designed for the safety and well-being of people.
Citroen Skate platform with spherical tires by Goodyear
The platform for the effort is the Citroen Skate, an autonomous, electric skateboard chassis designed to travel at speeds up to 25 km/h (about 15 mph) in dedicated lanes and to accept various coachwork. A feature of the Skate is its unusual spherical tire design, by Goodyear, that allows omnidirectional travel.
Initial pod designs include Accor’s Sofitel En Voyage, a mobile hospitality center designed as a way to stay within the brand experience while away from the hotel, and the Pullman Power Fitness, which allows for game-playing and fitness activities while on the go, and the JCDecaux City Provider, an on-demand way to travel with luggage, wheelchair, or other equipment in a vehicle with screens displaying information about the surrounding area while riding beneath a roof that has live plants.
Classic cars converted to run on electricity having been growing in popularity in recent years, as it’s a way to future-proof the cars in a world where fossil fuels may become sparse.
California-based Zelectric has been in the business for longer than most, starting with a conversion of a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle back in 2012. Now it’s brought its latest conversion, a 1968 Porsche 912, for an assessment by Jay Leno at his famous garage.
For readers unfamiliar with the 912, it was first launched by Porsche in the 1960s as a more affordable alternative to the 911. It featured the flat-4 engine from the previous Porsche 356, which was only good for about 90 hp, but the car was light, and this made it fun to drive.
Zelectric has managed to maintain the lightweight ethos with its electric conversion of the 912, which features a 32-kilowatt-hour battery and a Tesla motor good for 536 hp. According to the company, the whole thing weighs 2,505 pounds, or just 130 pounds more than the stock car. And there’s now a rear trunk.
That battery is small, with Zelectric promising a maximum range of 145 miles with moderate driving and just 120 miles if you put your foot down. However that should be more than enough for a fun drive, and Zelectric is working on upping the battery size.
Zelectric understands the need to preserve history, so the company has designed its conversion so that the car can be easily converted back to stock. According to the company, there was no welding or cutting of metal in the conversion process.
This article was originally published by Motor Authority, an editorial partner of ClassicCars.com.
