Market Intelligence
The BAT cars according to Cliff Goodall
This article discusses the significance of the sale of three BAT cars at a “Modern & Contemporary Art” auction in New York. The sale of the cars is seen as a turning point for the car and world of collecting, and the article considers who may have purchased the cars, including museums and wealthy tycoons. The article also considers the sale of a unique 1954 table designed by Carlo Mollino, which set a new world record for a piece of design. The abstract of this article is that the sale of the BAT cars at an art auction in New York is an important turning point for the car and the world of collecting, and the sale of a unique Carlo Mollino table set a world record.
As a car enthusiast, I tend to look at the sale of the BAT cars at Thursday’s “Modern & Contemporary Art” auction in New York as something very significant for the automobile and the world of collecting as a whole. It should however be remembered that a 1954 table designed by Carlo Mollino, a well-known architect and designer who, among his various projects, created the “Bisiluro” asymmetric car in 1955 that went on to compete at Le Mans, was sold for $6.2 million, three times its estimate and new world record for a piece of design. In my opinion, these are the signs of a natural tendency to meet artistic and design excellence, which, more and more, seems destined to involve the car.
The three BAT cars have been exhibited twice together at Pebble Beach to extraordinary acclaim.
The sale of the BAT “Triptych” (I have stolen the word from art) is without question a turning point for our world (even if a few years ago a Formula 1 Ferrari was sold at the same auction) also because the BAT car trilogy was the top lot of anart auction and by no means let the side down. What puzzles me, however, was the decision to offer them in between paintings by Banksy and Jasper Johns when, in my opinion, they would have appealed more to a collector of Giacometti and de Chirico, lots offered in the second part of the evening. But that’s just a detail.
