Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

Taken from Motor Sport, August 2007

The announcement in 2005 that Porsche would in the next year return to sports car racing with a purpose-built prototype met with a mixed reaction. Aficionados were excited that the most successful producer of such vehicles was back in town. Potential customers were enthused at the prospect of being able to buy one – although this wouldn’t be possible until 2007. But a slice of the racing demographic were rather less impressed when Porsche pulled the covers off its new racer, appropriately named the RS Spyder. You see, by entering LMP2 – that’s one class below the all-winning Audis – against a raft of privateer outfits was rather like Kevin Pietersen announcing his intention to join Flax Bourton cricket club of the Western League.

As it turned out, the Spyders didn’t have it all their own way. I journeyed to Sebring last year to watch their first race: neither car finished, a small transmission component failing over this track’s bumps. But the car was quick and, lest we forget, it was not a full factory team. Just as it had done in Can-Am 34 years before, Porsche had teamed up with Roger Penske’s huge operation. After that difficult introduction in Florida, the Spyders began to flourish and their eventual class title included an outright 1-2 at Mid-Ohio.

Porsche’s decision to use the Spyder moniker was entirely justified. Generations of road-going and racing Italian exotica have used the title, but the car which the majority of the population associate with that name assumed universal notoriety the day James Dean lost his life behind the wheel of one. (The car was to be called the 550/1500RS, but the American importer Max Hoffman suggested that it would be easier to sell given a name.) The significance of that crash on September 30, 1955 isn’t lost on Porsche; its own 550 Spyder, currently idling in the pitlane at the company’s Weissach test track, is, I am promptly told, the chassis produced immediately after Dean’s. I think that rates as provenance.

Motorsport has advanced immeasurably since the 1950s, and the clean, organic shape of the 550 sits uncomfortably against the brutal aero-management philosophy of the later car. But before we drive them, there are similarities to be explored and explained.

The first lies in the reason for their existence. Porsche’s commercial approach to motorsport was shaped by its 550 Spyder project. As the car evolved from Walter Glöckler’s Spyder, it was raced as it was developed. No two cars were the same and, as the programme progressed, a strategy emerged: Porsche would use only new vehicles for major events, and sell them after each race. And so was born its customer motorsport department. Today’s Spyder follows the same brief: yes, Porsche is trying to win in the American Le Mans Series, but this is also an exercise designed to sell cars and make money. And if you take one look at Porsche Motorsport’s new HQ at Weissach you realise how clever this strategy has been. Last winter alone it built 250 GT3 Cup cars, at least two dozen RSRs and three customer Spyders. That’s enough volume to be considered a manufacturer in its own right.

Other similarities? Well, their engines are mounted amidships – and other than that I have to confess I’m struggling. And anyway, the new car is being warmed.

This Le Mans-type racer is, at first, an intimidating device. Every surface appears to be a brittle, costly slither of carbon fibre, and its tiny cabin is littered with electronic gizmos and widgets whose operations are unknown but whose cost is, I assume, significant. You clamber in over the side, drop into the hard carbon seat, adjust the mandatory HANS device to be comfortable under the belts, and are then harnessed in place the way you imagine those aboard Saturn 5 might have been. Scope for head and neck movement is limited to furtive eye flicks.

The motor fires quickly and loudly. It displaces just 3397cc and is forced to breathe through 44mm restrictors, but somehow the alchemists in the engine shop have squeezed from it 503bhp at 10,300rpm and 273lb ft at 7500rpm. So, as long-serving Porsche engineer and tester Roland Kussmaul – a man with a direct link to every post-956 racing Porsche – asks me not to bin it, it’s time to consider three simple facts: 503bhp, 775kg, cold slicks.

After some technical gremlins in the season opener at Sebring, Porsche’s RS Spyders dominate the 2007 American Le Mans Series, winning the remaining 11 races in the LMP2 divison

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The car’s aggressive appearance and disjointed boarding procedure has prepared you for the worst, but an unexpectedly friendly character is confirmed within 100 yards of pulling away: it’s easy to drive. A simple foot clutch gets you moving, after which the Spyder becomes a strictly two-pedal, two-paddle device. Flick the right paddle to shift up, the left to shift down. It sounds simple. And that’s before you suss the uncanny accuracy with which the electronic systems blend the changes. Like any race transmission, it likes to work under maximum duress, and there’s significant slip from the cold rubber, but even so I have never driven a car that assists its driver so comprehensively.

The traction control system has many different maps for changing weather conditions and is understandably set to ‘full wally’ for my purposes, allowing me to lean on the rear axle from cold (although the car will still spin with the traction control on, apparently) and marvel at this six-speed transmission. Flat shifts from second to third send only the faintest flutter through the body. Remarkably, it’s even smoother coming back down the ’box. From 140mph in fifth, the driver simply flicks the left paddle, then waits the few milliseconds it takes for the black box to assimilate the difference between crank and cog speeds and apportion the precise number of revs to bridge that gap. This process is seamless, making a mockery of jerky road-going equivalents.

And the brakes – 380mm front and 355mm rear carbon discs – are mind-blowing. With some tyre temperature, it’s now possible to carry more corner speed and thump down the straights. Acceleration is strong up to about 140mph, but then begins to tail off because the Spyder runs more wing than a Fokker Triplane. Lift off the throttle at 155mph and it decelerates like a modern road car using half its braking performance. This means that the Spyder’s initial retardation is aerodynamically assisted, that you can punch the middle pedal as hard as you dare, bracing yourself in the belts as the car pulls 3g. But as speed is shed, so is aero effect, and this means that, just at the point your brain tells you to push a touch harder on the pedal, actually you must reduce pressure in preparation for mechanical grip’s takeover. It’s a strange feeling, but becomes instinctive fairly quickly.

“The car’s agility is difficult to comprehend, it slices through turns”

The car’s agility, though, is more difficult to comprehend. Weissach is a technical circuit shrouded in concrete obstacles, yet the Spyder slices at 100mph through turns which a GT3 RS couldn’t manage at 65mph. The final banked right-hander generates in the region of 2.5 lateral g, and after 10 laps my neck is throbbing. Modern racing drivers need to be incredibly fit.

Given the vigour with which it spun its V8 into life, you could assume that the new Spyder’s starter motor is as powerful as the 550’s engine. The air-cooled flat-four has been warming for a few minutes, but I lean in and switch it off. Whereas I was desperate to jump in and drive the other, I want to walk around the 550, absorb its shape and details. Only time will tell if future generations will stalk around surviving RS Spyders 50 years from now.

The 550 is a tiny racing slipper of a car, a machine shorn of everything superfluous, thus reducing mass and therefore maximising performance. Its shape was dictated by lengthy spells in a wind tunnel, and yet, like so many contemporary designs, its basic beauty suggests that function played no role in its creation.

Turn the key and that opinion changes. The opposed-four motor fires with enthusiasm. Brush the throttle pedal lightly and the rev-counter’s needle immediately fidgets through 2000rpm and energy fizzes into the lightweight body.

James Dean with his 550 Spyder, nicknamed ‘Little Bastard’. He would be killed in a road traffic accident on Route 46 on his way to the Salinas sports car races in 1955

Litho

There is little about the controls that would concern the driver of any air-cooled 911: floor-hinged pedals, familiar typefaces and a gear lever jutting from the floor. As enjoyable mechanical operations go, there are few to rival the gearshift of a healthy 550. Whereas the later car works its magic with competence, the joy in the old-timer lies in its action. The throw is relatively long, but the linkage has little slack and those last few inches as the cogs engage remind us why a manual gearbox is so special.

People in the 1950s must have been staggered by this car. Its Type 547 engine is now a thing of legend, and with a reliable 125bhp at 6500rpm from 1498cc, such status is well deserved. Kerb weight is in the region of 490kg, giving a power-to-weight ratio of 255bhp per tonne. It was very expensive at the time – nearly $7000 brand new – but so exceptional was its engineering, so strong its performance, there really was no competition substitute.

The 550 also features among Porsche’s top-10 sales, with Gooding & Co achieving .33m for a 1955 ‘French Blue’ model at its 2016 Amelia Island sale, putting it ninth on the list — The 550 also features among Porsche’s top-10 sales, with Gooding & Co achieving $5.33m for a 1955 ‘French Blue’ model at its 2016 Amelia Island sale, putting it ninth on the list

Porsche

There are some interesting similarities and differences at work here. For starters, despite its huge power advantage, it’s the modern Spyder’s engine which is better contained by its chassis. The 550 accrues speed with disarming ease. Contemporary tests show that standard cars could hit 60mph in a little over 8sec and top 120mph, but its braking performance and mechanical grip is, predictably, a long way short of that potential.

No matter, it has balance to spare. And this is the most striking similarity between two cars separated by half a century: both were created to allow the driver to flourish. Not only was the 550 the fastest sub-1500cc sports car of its day, it was also the easiest to drive, and when you’re trying to sell cars for endurance racing, that last point is important. Its chassis is remarkable. Lightweight, mid-engined sports cars are not famous for being forgiving souls, but this one is happiest slithering about deep into the meat of third gear. I’m certain the fastest way to coax it around Weissach would be to lean on the front axle until understeer sets in and then stabilise the throttle. But there is such a temptation to introduce more right foot and feel the back arc around that you soon find yourself adopting what can only be described as the line of maximum slip. Light, accurate steering and skinny radials only serve as further encouragement. You can see why these cars proved so devastating at Le Mans: the combination of useable performance and mechanical strength was irrepressible. In 1955 Helmut Polensky and Richard von Frankenberg finished fourth there, beaten only by two D-types and an Aston DB3S, cars with engines twice the size of the Porsche’s.

The 550/4 RS Spyder of Johnny Claes and Pierre Stasse on its way to a class win at Le Mans in 1954

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“The modern RS Spyder continues the lineage begun by the 550”

And what an engine this four-cam motor is. It loves to rev. The shove is impressive from 1500rpm to around 5000rpm, which is when the induction noise assumes a more serious tone, and it hammers on to 6500rpm. They were capable of revving well into the sevens, and driving it now, I can only assume that some ran them harder even than that, such is the mechanical smoothness and lack of inertia felt.

It’s an addictive machine. You exit the final right-hander in third gear, grab fourth and, as the air rushes over your head and the 550 begins to wander, you begin to wonder how something with a quarter of the horsepower of Porsche’s latest toy can prove almost as thrilling. Even more remarkable is the fact that this particular example feels as though it could lap for hours, but then I suspect it is rather expertly maintained.

The modern RS Spyder is an incredible machine: so amenable, so nimble, so damn fast. It continues the lineage begun by the 550, and even though this sounds like an emotionally clouded observation, strands of that gorgeous little silver car’s DNA are very much apparent in the yellow monster. Long may such genetic excellence continue.

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

Denis Jenkinson read the situation perfectly. In early 1962, as the dust settled following the ‘Palace Revolt’ in which a number of senior figures had left Maranello, Jenks wrote in Motor Sport that the upheaval was “not likely to have any effect, for after all, Enzo Ferrari has been running a racing team for many years”. In that time, he added, “there has been a long list of engineers coming and going… and yet Ferrari has gone on undisturbed, and it is my guess that he will continue in the same way”.

He did – for the most part. The Scuderia’s Formula 1 fortunes briefly slumped, but otherwise it was business as usual – which meant fighting on a number of fronts. When the 1962 250 GT Berlinetta – soon to become known to one and all as the GTO – was presented at Maranello that February, it stood alongside not only the latest grand prix car, but also the mid-engined 196 SP, 248 SP and 286 SP sports-racers. Whatever the discipline, Ferrari had all bases covered.

And therein lies one of the stories of the season. Sports car racing was having one of its occasional identity crises and the 1962 world championship would be fought out solely by GT cars – not a prospect that thrilled the organisers of the blue-riband races. They argued that no one wanted to see GT-only grids, and announced that they would allow ‘experimental prototypes’ into their events.

Ferrari 250 GTO Maranello 1962 — A dream line-up of Ferrari sports racers at Maranello before the 1962 season

Grand Prix Photo

The upshot was that championship rounds such as the Sebring 12 Hours, Targa Florio, Le Mans 24 Hours and Nürburgring 1000Kms were all won outright by sports-racing cars. GT machinery was often relegated to competing in a ‘race within a race’ – and to muddy the waters further, the championship itself was split into three divisions according to engine size. To quote Jenks again: “To win a GT championship outright is interesting; to win a third of the championship is absurd.”

But those were the conditions that prevailed, and even if the 1962 championship was missing the hillclimbs and criterium-style ‘rallies’ that would be added to the schedule in 1963, it wasn’t lacking in variety. It encompassed everything from the wide-open airfield at Sebring to the tortuous Circuito Piccolo delle Madonie for the Targa Florio, compact Goodwood to the epic Nordschleife – and, of course, the Le Mans 24 Hours.

“Phil Hill was initially somewhat dismayed to be in ‘this damn coupé’”

During 1961, hopes had been high in the British media that the new Jaguar E-type would take the fight to Ferrari, but a competition programme wasn’t a top priority at Browns Lane. In that respect, the contrast with Maranello was stark, Mauro Forghieri simply stating that “the factory was dedicated to the racing world”. There was no way that a half-hearted approach by the Scuderia’s rivals was going to be enough to knock it from its lofty perch – and so it proved.

Having not been ready in time for the opening round of the championship at Daytona, the GTO made its racing debut at the Sebring 12 Hours on March 24, chassis number 3387 GT being entrusted to the stellar driver pairing of Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien. Hill was initially somewhat dismayed to be in “this damn coupé” but, as the assembled sports-racers struck trouble, he and Gendebien enjoyed a strong run to second overall behind the Ferrari 250TRI/61 of Jo Bonnier and Lucien Bianchi.

Former works Maserati driver Giorgio Scarlatti did the lion’s share of the driving as he and the car’s owner, Pietro Ferraro, finished fourth overall in 3451 GT at the Targa Florio, but the same pairing then failed to finish in the Nürburgring 1000Kms. So did the other GTO that had been entered – driven by Umberto Maglioli and Gotfrid Köchert – but fortunately the Short Wheelbase of Wolfgang Seidel and Peter Nöcker picked up the pieces by finishing fifth overall and maintaining Ferrari’s perfect score in the championship.

250 GTO No19 finished second at Le Mans 1962, driven by Jean Guichet and Pierre Noblet

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Graham Hill stirred British souls by briefly leading the Le Mans 24 Hours in the Project 212 Aston, but Ferrari took an iron grip. While Gendebien and Phil Hill romped to victory in the works 330 TRI/LM, Jean Guichet took his GTO (3705 GT) to second overall with Pierre Noblet, and the Ecurie Francorchamps entry of Léon Dernier and Jean Blaton (3757 GT) crossed the line third. It had been a race in which the leading GTOs had outlasted an array of those ‘experimental prototypes’. In addition to the Project Aston and 330 TRI/LM, there was a 4-litre Berlinetta from Ferrari, a trio of Maserati’s fearsome Tipo 151 coupés, and Count Volpi showed up with his Ferrari 250 GT ‘Breadvan’ – a car born out of his frustration with Enzo, and a whole story in its own right.

GTO5 — There were more Ferraris than any other marque at Le Mans in ’62 – GTO No58 DNF

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In July, Carlo Maria Abate took Volpi’s GTO (3445 GT) to victory in the Trophées d’Auvergne at Charade, leaving the little Lotus 23 of Alan Rees to trail home in second, and GTOs then dominated the following month’s Tourist Trophy at Goodwood. Innes Ireland took pole position in 3505 GT, but come the race he was soon overtaken by John Surtees in 3647 GT. ‘Fearless John’ set a series of lap records as he pulled away from the other GTOs, and looked set to add a four-wheeled TT win to his earlier two-wheeled success until Jim Clark lost control of his Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato while being lapped and took them both out of the race.

GTO debut at Sebring that same year, and a second place

A grateful Ireland swept past to take victory, and Bob Grossman maintained the GTO’s perfect record by finishing second overall at Bridgehampton’s Double 400. The championship then came to a close at the Paris 1000Kms in which GTOs occupied four of the top six positions. Leading them all were Pedro and Ricardo Rodríguez in the NART-entered 3987 GT, a poignant result given that Ricardo died a couple of weeks later during practice for the Mexican Grand Prix.

Ferrari’s clean sweep en route to the title was impressive, but the GTO really showed its versatility away from the glare of the world championship. In the UK, Graham Hill did his best to keep on terms in the John Coombs Jaguar E-type, but the likes of Mike Parkes, John Surtees and Innes Ireland were all GTO- mounted and Parkes, in particular, ran riot.

“Sadly, the officials refused to let the car race without a bonnet”

On paper, some of these British events might seem low-key. Twenty-five laps around Mallory Park is a long way – both literally and figuratively – from the Targa Florio, but Parkes, Surtees and Hill were all at the Leicestershire circuit on June 11. And for the feature Formula 1 race that day, the front row comprised Surtees, Jack Brabham, Clark and Hill.

On the home front, privateers Edoardo Lualdi Gabardi and Ferdinando Pagliarini often went head-to-head in Italian hillclimbing. Lualdi Gabardi – who ran a successful textiles business and was a loyal customer of Ferrari – acquired 3413 GT and won first time out at the Coppa Città di Asiago. This was a different discipline to British hillclimbing, on a more epic scale – highlighted by the fact that the Mosson-Treschè Conca course covered nine miles and climbed 802 metres (2650 feet).

Filippo Theodoli at Le Mans 1962 — FIA official Filippo Theodoli has the best seat in the house at Le Mans 1962 on the NART’s GTO

Lualdi Gabardi would claim nine class victories during the course of that year and win his class in the Italian GT Championship, but the GTO’s maiden season was not entirely flawless. The Tour de France – still a non- championship event in 1962 – had become a Ferrari stronghold, its gruelling schedule showcasing the all-round abilities of the 250 GT Berlinetta, variants of which had won every year since 1956. Thanks to an unfortunate sequence of events involving a moment’s inattention, a milk lorry and a missing bonnet, it would not be a GTO that continued that run.

GTO7 — Thumbs up at the 1962 Targa Florio for the 250 GTO of Giorgio Scarlatti and Pietro Ferraro

Klemantaski Collection/Getty Images

Lucien Bianchi and Claude Dubois had a comfortable lead aboard 3527 GT as the field made its way from Spa-Francorchamps to Reims for the final race of that year’s Tour, but as they came through the village of Remouchamps, Bianchi went straight through a junction and hit a milk lorry. The damage was extensive, but Ferrari’s Assistenza Tecnica crew worked miracles to get the GTO to Reims. Sadly, it was for nothing – officials refused to let the car race without its bonnet, which had been left in Remouchamps.

The Belgians were classified seventh and victory instead went to the Short Wheelbase of André Simon and Maurice Dupeyron. Decades later, Dubois remembered that while he was driving the GTO during a pre-event recce on one of the hillclimbs, Bianchi had warned him to slowdown because it was a time of day at which the milk lorries would be on the road…

Later in 1962, the GTO chalked up yet more victories, from the Rand 9 Hours at Kyalami to the Nassau Tourist Trophy. In America, however, there was trouble brewing. Carroll Shelby’s Cobra had been homologated on August 6, and the Texan set his sights on taking down Ferrari. He managed it, too, but not until 1965 – by which point the GTO had chalked up three world championships and Enzo, as always, had long since moved on.

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

1.1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe

2. 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 R streamliner

3. 1962 Ferrari 330 LM 250 GTO by Scaglietti

4. 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO

5. 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO

6. 1964 Ferrari 250 LM by Scaglietti

7. 1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti

8. 1967 Ferrari 412P Berlinetta

9. 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196

10. 1956 Ferrari 290 MM

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

Mercedes 17.3-litre 150 HP ‘Brookland’ Semmering Rennwagen

Laurin & Klement Type S2 Sportswagen

Mercedes 22/40 HP ‘Colonial’ Double Phaeton

Benetton B191

Chevrolet Corvette SS Project XP-64

Ford GT40 Mk II

Spirit of America Sonic 1

Itala 120 HP Works Racing Car

Bugatti Type 35B Grand Prix

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

5. 917/10 Spyder

4. 959 Paris-Dakar

3. 911 GT1

2. 956

1. 917K

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction

Top 10 most expensive cars ever sold at auction