The Monterey Car Week is an annual car show that’s famous not just for its premieres and retro car exhibits, but also for auctions offering rare and expensive automotive exotics. According to duPont Registry, this year’s trading brought in a record 470 million USD. Let us look at the highlights.
The Drive reports that out of six highest-priced vehicles, three were Ferraris. Leading the rating is a 1955 Ferrari 410 Spider, one of two of its kind armed with a 4.9-liter V12. The car, which was used to be driven by legends like Carroll Shelby and Juan Manuel Fangio, fetched $22,005,000.
Next down the list is an 85-year-old Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante, the best-preserved out of 17 examples in existence. The buyer parted with $10,345,000.
The third place goes to a contemporary of the Atlante mentioned above, one of the three surviving Mercedes-Benz 540K Sindelfingen roadsters. The vehicle has changed hands five times throughout its life and had a King of Afghanistan in the list of owners. The winning bid climbed to $9,905,000.
Then there was a 98-year-old Hispano-Suiza H6C Tulipwood Torpedo trimmed with red wood. The buyer forked over $9,245,000 for the vintage exotic.
Standing at place number five is number 18 out of 19 produced Ferrari 500 TRC Spider racecars that participated in tournaments in the late 1950s. Its selling price of $7,815,000 fell short of expectations. Rounding off the top-six is a 56-year-old Ferrari 275 GTB/C coupe that found a new owner for $7,595,000.
RM Sotheby’s auction holders sold five out of these six vehicles. All in all, more than 110 cars sold at this year’s Monterey show surpassed the $1 million mark. The previous total value record of 395 million USD was set seven years ago.