Iconic vs Historics Auction: A Draw of Passion

Last week we compared two, let's say, popular auctions: those with very low-priced models. Today we take a step further by comparing Iconic on the day it offered its highest-level cars (average price around £60,000) with Historics at Brooklands. Iconic was a little smaller: 145 lots versus 170 for Historics, but in the end, the sales were similar, 99 lots for Iconic and 102 successful sales for Historics.

This resulted in a higher success rate for Iconic, which was equal to 68.27%, a little above the 60% of the Brooklands sale. In terms of value, Iconic, with an estimated value of £8,691,500 and a hammer price of £6,236,945, achieved an average price of £62,999, while Historics, with an estimate of £5,917,000, had a hammer price of £2,895,814 and the average price stopped at £28,390.

Clearly, the top lot of these two auctions belongs to Iconic. It featured the 2000 Ford Focus MkI WRC driven by Carlos Sainz during the first rally season of the millennium with important victories with Sainz and, the following year, with McRae. Estimated at £380,000–£420,000, it reached £393,750. This is a price slightly below the record for any Focus. And that's not all: another 2001 MkI WRC, this time driven by McRae with a victory and a second place in its track record, reached £423,000, about £30,000 more. Given that the cars are substantially identical, one might think that the English driver made the difference in England!