Off topic - NYT article about auction for rare Ferrari car.
December 10, 2000
VICARIOUS CONSUMPTION
Do I Hear $10 Million? The Fight for a Ferrari
BY ALAN COWELL
LONDON --You are looking for
a fancy car and don't mind
paying top dollar — the very
top dollar. So what's it to be? A
Mercedes S-class for $100,000-plus
or a rare, late-model Aston Martin at
$300,000? A brand-new Rolls-Royce
at $350,000 or maybe one of those
new Bugattis that Volkswagen is
planning to sell in the region of
$750,000?
Forget them all.
If there is one car that makes those
prices look puny, it is a flame-red
Ferrari GTO that Bonhams &
Brooks, a British auction house, is
planning to put on the block this
month in Gstaad, Switzerland.
The expected price? In excess of
$10 million — a record for a car at
auction, says the auction house,
which will conduct the sale of the
car and other Ferrari memorabilia on
Dec. 19 at Gstaad's Palace Hotel.
The current record for a car at
auction is £5.54 million, roughly
$7.7 million at current exchange
rates, for a 1932 Bugatti Royale, one
of only seven ever built; it was sold
to an unidentified buyer at Christie's
in 1987 at the Royal Albert Hall in
London, according to Christie's.
In a classified ad, the Ferrari may
not sound very appealing — For
sale: 1963 sports car, at least 10
previous owners, five of them in the
United States, probably 30,000
miles. (It doesn't have an odometer.)
But Simon Kidston, the Bonhams &
Brooks representative in Geneva,
said the car to be sold — chassis
number 4293 GT — is one of only
39 ever built (all in the early 60's),
has never been in a major crash and
still has its original three-liter, V-12
engine. It received two trophies at
the prestigious Le Mans 24- hour
race in France in 1963 — first in the
GT, or gran turismo, category, and
second over all. It also won two
lesser races and placed third in
another.
"The value of a car like this is based on how original it is, and the main
contributor to value is how many races it won," Mr. Kidston said.
Indeed, said Mick Walsh, editor in chief of Classic and Sports Car, a British
magazine for automotive enthusiasts, the car to be sold in Gstaad is "the
ultimate GT car of its era." Even Enzo Ferrari, the onetime boss of the Italian
sports and racing car company now owned by Fiat, had a soft spot for this
particular GTO, according to the auctioneers' publicity material, because of
its triumph at Le Mans.
"It's difficult to be very analytical about its cult status," Mr. Walsh said. "It's
just the zenith of this particular car."
To an outsider, $10 million may seem an outrageous price for four wheels
and an engine. By one calculation, roughly 100 new Porsche Carreras could
be bought for that money, and the GTO's performance figures are barely
startling by modern standards of high-priced sports cars that can reach 200
miles per hour.
The 1963 GTO, Mr. Walsh said, has a top speed of 146 m.p.h. and
accelerates from zero to 60 in 5.9 seconds. That is not bad for a 37-year-old,
but it hardly compares with the latest Ferraris, which, according to the
manufacturer's specifications, are capable of 180 to 199 m.p.h. and need as
little as 4.4 seconds to go from zero to 100 kilometers per hour, or 62 m.p.h.
And even those models are not the quickest or most expensive among
production cars. That honor is claimed by McLaren Cars Ltd., whose F1, of
which only 100 were ever produced (from 1994 to 1998), had a top speed of
240 m.p.h., went from zero to 60 in 3.2 seconds and, at the exchange rate of
the day, cost around $1 million. (Used F1's these days cost much more, the
company says.)
But in the refined world of car collecting, the Ferrari GTO has established a
niche market for cognoscenti that has seesawed with the fortunes of potential
buyers. In 1990, Mr. Walsh said, the first of a pair of GTO's sold in Britain
for $14 million in a private sale — thought to be a record for a private deal.
Four years later, the second car fetched just $2.5 million, also in a private
transaction. But over the last year, he said, three other GTO's have changed
hands for $6.5 million to $7 million.
While it may not be as rare as a Bugatti Royale, the 1963 GTO model Ferrari,
which cost $15,000 when new, or around $84,000 in today's dollars, is
certainly among the most sought-after of oldies: Antonio Ghini, a spokesman
for Ferrari, said that only around 30 of the original 39 cars are thought to
have survived. Ferrari maintains the mystique of rarity with its newest cars,
too. Each year, only 4,000 are produced — roughly one-quarter of them
destined for the dominant American market — and even with prices ranging
from $144,620 for the cheapest V-8 model to $258,000 for the top- end
V-12, the wait is up to two years, Mr. Ghini said.
Mr. Walsh said that there was a "good chance" that the auction car would get
its estimated price. "The market is quite buoyant at the moment," he said.
"And if there are two people who want it enough, it'll fetch the price."
Who will be bidding? Bonhams & Brooks would not say, but Mr. Kidston
said that "most of them are self-made men."
"The age profile is between 40 and 60," he added, and many of the
enthusiasts are from the United States, "where most of the most expensive
cars tend to sell."
There is more than a whiff of highfliers' year-end bonuses about the
marketplace, too. "We have a lot of people in telecoms in the U.S., people in
finance on Wall Street," Mr. Kidston said. Amid the dot-com stock debacle,
however, there are "not many in the Internet business," he added.
Mr. Kidston declined to identify potential buyers — secrecy about likely
bidders is common in this tiny but lucrative corner of the automotive market.
But he did let slip that one expected bidder already owned a "sister car" GTO.
He also declined to identify the seller, who Classic and Sports Car has already
said was an enthusiast from Hong Kong, Patrick Ma. The magazine also
reported that one of the car's previous owners was so proud of it that he put
it on display in the living room of his home in Japan.
"They try to remain anonymous," said Nicholas Benwell at Christie's, which
sold a 1956 Maserati two-seat open sports car for a comparatively modest
$240,000 at an auction last month.
Prospective buyers often bid by phone or nominate others to bid for them.
"People don't like to be seen buying this car," Mr. Walsh said. "It would
create unnecessary attention. They want to be discreet."
Indeed, he said, the biggest deals are usually done privately, far from the
glare of auction rooms. "There's such a demand that sellers don't need to
come to auction, and they prefer a low profile," Mr. Walsh said.
The GTO, of course, is not the only expensive vintage car in collectors'
sights. A prewar Alfa Romeo 2.9-liter can fetch up to $4.2 million in private
sales. Classic Driver (www.classicdriver.com), a European Internet
magazine for enthusiasts, recently listed hundreds of high-ticket cars for sale,
including a late-model Aston Martin Vantage for about $300,000.
Part of the mystique of the GTO's is that they were the last of a generation
of sports cars that could be driven on the road as easily as on the track — a
qualification prized by buyers who want to use their cars for collectors'
rallies, races and other events.
According to the auctioneers, after 4293 GT completed the grueling 24-hour
race at Le Mans in 1963, it was simply refueled and driven to Paris for an
extravaganza of nightclub celebrations, then driven back to Belgium — the
home of its two drivers, Jean Blaton and Gerard Langlois van Ophem, who
piloted it in the race.
But the trip might not have been comfortable.
"It's phenomenally noisy," said Mr. Walsh, who drove the car in Britain's
Goodwood race circuit in early November, when the former race-car
champion John Surtees also took the wheel. "It's a pretty basic car, quite
crude, really. But that's not the point."
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company |
