How much is too much to pay for a car? For me, the law of diminishing returns has become terminal well below £200,000. But then I'm a car enthusiast, not a an investment banker - the sort of person who has, of late, been skyrocketing classic car prices to intergalactic levels; the sort of person who's already Beluga'd up in the VIP area at Pebble Beach in California, where the next four days will witness the world of classic car brokering - perhaps literally - going for broke.
Steve McQueen's Ferrari estimated at $12m
We're about to discover the new upper limit of what a car is worth. At three auctions in and around Pebble Beach next week, the hammer will go down on easily the most stellar line-up of cars ever sold.
The $70m GTO?
At least eight cars look certain to join the rarefied 'Figure of Eight' club (estimated value $10,000,000 or over). We'll know later today just how much the most expensive of all will sell for: the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO at Bonhams. Since the last GTO on sale went for over $50m, a figure as high as $70m isn't implausible. The world's most expensive car? Easily.
Down the road at Gooding & Co is a McLaren F1 - the only one ever painted Marlboro White - which is expected to pummel last year's record auction price of $8.47m for an F1, with an upper estimate of $14m. But it'll be outshone by another mid-engined three-seater, built three decades before the McLaren F1. Pininfarina's stunning 1966 Ferrari 365 P Berlinetta Speciale is based on a Ferrari 365 P2 endurance racer chassis but was built for the road - in fact, the first ever mid-engined 12-cylinder purpose-built road Ferrari. It's probably going to top $20m, says Gooding.
Three-seater 365 P Speciale pitched at $20m
As for Ferrari's first-ever mid-engined 'road' car, the 250 LM, RM Auctions has
a 1964 Scaglietti example
up for sale at a slightly more 'affordable' upper estimate of $12.5m - but since the last one sold for $13m in 2013, I reckon it could easily sell for $20m.
Steve McQueen's Fezza, too
RM's star of the show has to be another Scaglietti-bodied Ferrari: the stunning 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4once owned by Steve McQueen. RM's pre-sale estimate is $12 million, but I think it should go for a lot more. Meanwhile, a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider has an estimate of $15m. And what about the first-ever Ford GT40 Roadster, one of only six Roadsters built - yours for an estimated $10m? See it in action here in our earlier Time For Tea?
RM's lovely Alfa GTA Junior at affordable (relative) end
If you can't afford that 250 GTO, what about its successor, the
275 GTB/C
? RM is offering one of only three built , and if less than $30m changed hands I'd be very surprised. In fact, many of the official estimates look pretty conservative to me. In the current febrile climate, expect many of them to be doubled, at least.
What price a bargain?
After that breathless set of figures, I'm almost temped to apply the word 'bargain' to the following lots: how about your very own Ferrari F1 car - the mere spare car from the 2000 season, admittedly, but still driven by Schumacher twice - for $2m; a 2003 Aston Martin DBAR1 by Zagato for $200,000; a $175,000 Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA 1300 Junior; a Lancia Stratos HF up for $450,000; and my personal favourite (and previously featured here as a Spotted), a 1972 Nissan Skyline H/T 2000GT-R 'Hakosuka' estimated at $125,000.
Zagato Aston DBAR1 among quirkier lots
So is $70m too much to pay for a car? Of course it is. But these really aren't 'cars' any more, they're investments. Which leads me on to my next question: like any investment, values can go down as well as up, so is this particularly corpulent bubble about to burst? Like a lot of enthusiasts who would kill for a sniff of such machinery, I would like to answer 'yes' to that. But frankly, I can only see the market going one way: up, and up, and up...
[Sources, with full sale listings: Bonhams, RM Auctions, Gooding & Co]
Photos: RM Auctions (250LM, Stratos, GT40, Alfa GTA, Aston DBAR1, McQueen 275GTB/4) Brian Henniker via Gooding & Co (McLaren F1) and Bonhams (250GTO)