Market Intelligence
Gooding fared well. But the winning horse has a slight limp...
The highlight of Gooding's car auction was lot 43, a 1958 Ferrari 250 California Spider LWB with a rare hardtop, which had an estimate of $9-11 million. Despite receiving many offers, bidding stalled at $8 million and the car did not sell. Other notable cars included a 1914 Rolls Royce 40/50hp Torpedo Phaeton with Kellner bodywork that sold for $2.2 million and a Lamborghini Miura S that fetched $1.4 million. A 2015 Ferrari 458 Speciale Aperta also exceeded expectations and sold for $654,000. Pre-war cars represented less than 5% of the cars on offer, but still made up the most expensive lot. The total sales amounted to $20.4 million, a 10% decrease from last year, with 92% of the cars sold.
At Gooding, the only lot that mattered was number 43, the others were a side dish. In 2019, Gooding sold about $22 million, this year it offered cars worth a total of $33,910,000 but a single car made up almost a third of that number. To put this into perspective, the top lot was worth as much as the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth cars put together. A make or break moment, if you will. Selling it would have been a success, otherwise...
What car was it and how did it go? Let’s take it slowly, now that I’ve created the suspense, I will first tell you about three other interesting lots.
Shall we begin with the “usual” Porsche? Almost, this time the subject was a 1998 RUF Turbo R. Belonging to the Porsche family, dark green colour... yes! Now I remember, I saw her last year on Amelia Island (but through Bonhams). At the time it had 14,000 km on the clock and was sold for $626,500. The new owner enjoyed it, added 23,000 km to it (we are now at 37,000 in total) and sold it for $676,000. Once commissions had been accounted for he didn’t actually make any money on it, but he certainly spent a pleasant year at practically zero cost.
