Five stunners in the Bonhams Festival of Speed sale | GRR
Of the million reasons to go to this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, five of them will be in the Bonhams marquee – they are the million-pound cars up for grabs in the annual collector-car auction. And a very pretty famous five they make, too.
Alfa Romeo Tipo 33
Estimate: £1.8-2.2m
Star of the show is an Alfa Romeo racing sports prototype, an exquisite Tipo 33 that finished fourth overall at Le Mans in 1972, driven by Andrea de Adamich and Nino Vaccarella. This Autodelta-prepared works car has a distinguished period competition history and fine record in contemporary historic events, including the Le Mans Classic. And we have seen it at Goodwood, too: it took to the Motor Circuit, driven by Sam Hancock, at the 2017 Members' Meeting.
As a TT series car it has a lighter tubular spaceframe chassis than earlier models. It’s powered by a 3.0-litre, four-cam, 32-valve V8 (the engine went on to power Formula 1 cars) boasting 440PS (324kW) in endurance race form. And staying with impressive numbers: Bonhams expects to get as much as £2.2m for the car.
Aston Martin DB5 Convertible
Estimate: £1.3-1.7m
Next up on our million-pound shortlist is an Aston Martin DB5, that icon of ‘60s British sports cars and a favourite car of the rich and famous of the day. And if provenance is important you surely could do no better than bag this svelte, blue (Caribbean Pearl, actually) convertible.
The Aston was bought new in 1964 by Peter Sellers who sold it to his friend, Princess Margaret’s photographer husband, the Earl of Snowdon. It stayed in the family until the earl gave it to his son, Viscount Linley, as a 25th birthday present.
One of 85 right-hand drive DB5 convertibles, this royally-connected thoroughbred, sat in by the crème de la crème of 1960s London high society, is expected to sell for between £1.3-1.7m.
Maserati Tipo 26B
Estimate: £900,000-1.3m
Want to spend a mill on something a little older but a lot racier? Third million-pound car in the Bonhams Festival auction, with a guide price of £900,000-1.3m, is an early Maserati: a 1928 Tipo 26B two-seater sports. As ‘20s racers go, it definitely looks the part, and is said to be great fun to drive, but it does not have the most conventional of histories.
This car’s competition playground was not Europe but Argentina. It was campaigned in national motorsport in that country by a rancher of Scottish extraction called Juan Augusto Malcolm, by all accounts a very colourful character. The supercharged straight-eight powered machine did well in his hands, winning races in South America between 1930-38 and making Señor Malcolm a local legend.
The car has had its share of work done but Maserati experts agree the chassis side rails and engine are substantially original, and a full restoration has made it ready for historic race duty.
Ferrari Dino 246/60 F1 car
Estimate: £900,000-1.3m
Staying with competition, what about spending a million on a Ferrari Dino F1 car? Bonhams says it could be your ticket to an extremely competitive drive in historic grand prix racing. It’s a million-pound “bitsa” single-seat Ferrari, and a very highly regarded one at that: it has been on display in the Enzo Ferrari family museum in Modena.
It is believed to be on the chassis of the first Dino F2 prototype from 1957 and has the original four-cam V6 engine and original gearbox dating from 1959. A variety of Ferrari F1/F2 bits made up the rest of the car – works cars were chopped and changed a lot in those days – with all ingredients finally being brought together as a historic GP car for Corrado Cupellini in the late 1970s.
The Dino 246/60 has already raced in major historic meetings in Monaco, the Nürburgring, Monza and Imola. Now someone needs to buy this beautiful example from the era of the last front-engined GP cars and race it at Goodwood – what a spectacular way to keep the Maserati 250Fs honest in the Richmond and Gordon Trophies at Revival. But it might cost that person £1.3m. The good news is the car comes with a load of spares including a spare chassis frame.
Ferrari F40
Estimate: £800,000-1.2m
Few Ferrari road cars are as alluring and well regarded as the F40, the first production car to hit 200mph and the last Ferrari to be signed off by Enzo Ferrari before his death in 1988. More than 1,300 of these supercar icons were built but only 78 of them were official UK-spec cars and of those only 20 were the favoured non-catalyst versions, of which this 1990 example is one.
The twin-turbo V8-powered car was bought new by the well-known racer and collector, Sir Paul Vestey. In 31 years, it has had four owners, the most recent since 2015. It has been serviced every year since then, most recently with new cambelts, despite only having been driven once, around the Isle of Man, in the past six years. In total the car has covered 11,000 miles.
Price? Bonhams reckons it will make £800,000-1.2m when the hammer drops at its Festival of Speed auction on Friday 9th July.
Who wants to be a millionaire? We do!
Images courtesy of Bonhams.