The annual automotive auction frenzy unfolded as expected this August during Classic Car Week in Monterey, California, resulting in 20 cars with competition heritage bringing in $1 million or more each. Two racecars broke the $9 million mark with one of those being the 1953 Ferrari 375 MM Spider by Pinin Farina that RM Auctions hammered for $9,075,000.
Three cars filled the $4 million bracket, with a 1948 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Competizione selling for $4,840,000, and a 1931 Bentley 4.5-Liter Supercharged Le Mans Roadster fetching $4,647,500, while a 1955 Ferrari 750 Monza Spider by Scaglietti was sold by RM for $4,070,000.
Among the racecars changing hands in the $3 million range were the first Weslake V12-powered All American Racers Eagle Formula One car, chassis 102, in which Dan Gurney won the 1967 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, selling for $3,740,000 and prompting comments that the amount represented several multiples of the entire budget for AAR’s original F1 program! The others were a 1955 Porsche 550 RS Spyder selling for a strong $3.75 million at Mecum’s annual sale, while RM sold the works McLaren M16C-Offenhauser with which Johnny Rutherford won the 1974 Indy 500—one of very few 500-winning cars not owned by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Hall of Fame Museum—for $3,520,000. Other notable racecars sold were RM’s 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial (featured in the August issue of VR) for $3.52 million and the back-to-back championship-winning 1961 Gulf Corvette sold by Mecum for $1.4 million.
