Aston Martin DBR1: £17.5m

First DBR1 built becomes the most valuable British car ever sold at auction - where next?!

If you're thinking it wasn't that long ago that a British car set an auction record, that's because it wasn't: in fact the feat was achieved a year ago, at Pebble Beach, by a Jaguar D-Type.

But now its paltry $21,780,000 has been surpassed by this Aston Martin DBR1, which sold at RM's Monterey sale for $22,550,000. Cripes. At the current exchange rate that's £17.5m...

Of course all DBR1s are fantastically important - only five were ever built - but this one is especially significant as the 1959 Nurburgring 1000KM winner and sister to the Le Mans-winning car. The list of drivers for chassis number DBR1/1 reads like a roll call of the great sportscar pilots of the 50s and 60s: Roy Salvadori, Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Carroll Shelby. It's enjoyed a colourful history since then - including 12 years untouched between 1964 and 1976 - and has been used at the Goodwood Revival in recent times. It is, and remains, one of the most important Aston Martins ever built.

In other Aston news a DB4GT Prototype made $6,765,000 (£5.2m), which was right on estimate, and a 2006 DBR9 racer smashed its pre-auction prediction and made $616,000. Probably worth it for the noise alone, right?

The remaining auction results will be on the RM site soon - expect some very, very big numbers...