RM Sotheby’s February Open Roads auction (their online only classic car sale designed for these socially distanced times) certainly had some very strong results.
When the catalogue for the March sale dropped into our inbox we expected that story to repeat itself. In fact, the wealth of Italian cars to choose from this time around was probably even more impressive. We glossed over the big ticket items like the 250 GT’s and some of the more vintage metal but in terms of our particular niche, there was plenty for italicar to obsess over.
The low mileage Barchetta had us very tempted indeed, it was interesting to see the value of 916 Alfa Romeos now they’re able to be legally imported into America and some of our personal favourite Ferrari models were present. We were definitely expecting new benchmarks for values to be set here.
Below we highlight 13 of the lots we had our eye on, detail their condition and record their final bids. We think some of these might surprise even the most ardent of Italian car afficionados…
2002 Maserati Spyder
We’ve been thinking of these 4200 Spyders ever since someone sent us a clip of Michael Schumacher effortlessly wafting one around Fiorano (see here). This one also caught our eye as the first Italian to give us a measure of where the bidders were going to be. Sensible mileage of 50k, a big ol’ receipt totalling over €4k from 2019 and an elegant colour combination.
Having said that, the estimate certainly seemed optimistic to us, from a RHD market perspective. The condition report wasn’t damning, but nor was it glowing. Pretty much every area was recorded as being in ‘fair condition’, with particular notes on the fact the boot release button wasn’t working, the soft-top had been patched in places (would have been nice to see these photographed) and the interior switches had been badly repaired (not only Alfas and Fiats of this era suffer from the dready sticky goop!). When bidding fizzled out at €23,000 it was pretty much in line with what you’d expect to pay for a similar conditioned Spyder here in the UK, so felt bang on the money to us - even though it failed to sell.
1964 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint Speciale
Often listed along with the 250 GTO and Miura as perhaps one of the prettiest cars ever styled, the Sprint Speciale stands as one of Bertone’s finest creations. Echoing the otherworldly Disco Volante as well as Bertone’s own insane BAT models, these are a design icon. If ever a classic car could be considered as a piece of art, the Giulia Sprint Speciale is one of them.
This 1600 (earlier examples shared the 1,290cc engine with the Giulietta) model was a rare opportunity to see one out in the open market. Owned by the same gentleman up to 2003, since when it had been passed around a couple of collections (we loved the picture in the history file of it sitting alongside other Alfas, including what looks to be a 147 GTA?). Although it was described as having been restored in the catalogue blurb, the condition report only ranked it as “fair condition” overall, with the paint quality and chrome bumpers actually being marked as ‘poor’. There were further little niggles like a dent in the boot lid, but these snags clearly did little to dampen the bidders’ enthusiasm.
1998 Fiat Barchetta
We thought this remarkable little-boat would have made quite the two-car garage paired up with the Fiat Coupe 16VT from the last Open Roads sale. Although there was no provenance or history to explain the miraculous speedo’ reading of under 700-miles (!), it was the opinion of the inspector writing the condition report that it appeared to be genuine.
We watched this one very closely indeed and at just £9,500, we were kicking ourselves we hadn’t bothered to register for bidding. Take a look on any classified site and you’ll pay £5-£7k for any halfway decent Barchetta, so this unique little find look looked a bargain for whoever was lucky enough to win it. Plus it was already in the UK and fully registered, so no import tax or carriage costs to worry about. This will go down as one of those “shoulda bought it” cars in years to come, when its value inevitably sky-rockets and we’re reminiscing on the cars that got away from us.
1970 DeTomaso Mangusta
I’m not sure that I’ve ever actually seen a Mangusta in the flesh, but if its engine rumble is anything like that of a Pantera or a Longchamps, you can consider me a full on fanboy. It’s probably sacrilegious to admit here on these pages, but I always admired the marrying up of Italian supercar styling with the blunt force of American muscle under the hood.
Fewer than 400 Mangustas were ever produced (probably why I’ve never seen one?) but the lucky few who bought one were able to experience 300bhp (in European guise, like this one), a reported 155mph+ top speed and Giugiaro’s elegant mouldings, including that glorious gullwing engine cover. As a pop-quiz aside who knows what mangusta translates to in English? Mongoose. As in; something which eats Cobras. For that fact alone, we absolutely love this car.
Bidding struggled for a long time on this one, just managing to squeak near enough to the lower-estimate in the dying seconds to secure a new home. The 70s supercar market is a difficult one to keep track of, but this looked a decent buy to us. Rarer than both a Miura or a Daytona and, at this price, considerably cheaper than both too (we’ll just gloss over the fact that they’re supposedly a handful to drive!).
1980 Ferrari 208 GTS
If you were to create a recipe for a surefire, runaway classic auction success story, you’d probably list the key ingredients as; Ferrari, red, original, low mileage, rare and soft-top. This 1980 208 ticks each and every one of those, so why on earth did it fail to sell and, worse, limped in with a paltry high bid of just €43k?
Well, the forlorn 208 is repeatedly mocked as the “slow-Ferrari” (although the 208 GT4 is actually slower in real world tests), produced in order to circumvent Italian tax rules which more than doubled VAT for any car above 2.0-litres. The de-bored engine is actually officially the smallest V8 ever produced and produces just 153bhp. Ferrari were so embarrassed by the resulting performance that they never actually released an official 0-60 time for the 208. As such, just 167 of these cost-cutting GTS’ were sold.
But I personally think that this all adds to the car’s charm and story. This one may have been a bit bruised (dents here and there according to the report and badly in need of two rear tyres) but, come on, this is the same price as a decent spec’ diesel Nissan Qashqai. That bland SUV may well be quicker than this particular Ferrari, but I still know what would make me happier on a trip to Tesco’s.
1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1600 Spider Veloce
If baby-blue Alfa Romeos are your thing (and if they’re not, what are you even doing on this website?), then RM Sotheby’s had you covered in this sale. Their first offering was this delectably cute Giulia - the later Veloce model with the subtle bonnet scoops belying the larger 1600cc, 129bhp twincam engine from the Sprint Speciale as above.
In the pictures, it presented very well to us. The paint had enough marks and patina (particularly under the badges and on the front valance) to suggest it just might be original or, at worst, an older, high quality restoration. There was sadly very little to go on in terms of documentation or info in the catalogue beyond the generic blurb covering the model spec’. Had there been more of this provided, and its story fleshed out a bit, maybe it would have performed better. As it was, it remains unsold and bidding finished over 25% below the upper estimate.
1964 Alfa Romeo Giulia TI Super
This is something special. It might not look like a GTA, but for those Alfisti in the know, this is just as desirable (if not more, for oddballs like us). Available for just two short years, only 501 of these performance-saloons were ever built (all but two of them in white, too). Sharing the same 1,570cc engine as the Giulia Spider Veloce and Sprint Speciale, the Giulia TI Super also underwent some serious weight saving measures to deliver performance.
The overriders were ditched from the bumpers, Plexiglass windows were slotted into the rear, the front quarter glasses were fixed and the wheels became lightweight magnesium. These things excelled in races against machinery they should never have held a candle to. An absolute legend in Alfa Romeo history, this charming little example is one of the few survivors to have never been modified for competitions. Tens of thousands’ had been spent on it mechanically over the past few years and we really thought this might do exceedingly well. As it was, though, it was another to add to the growing ‘Unsold’ list in the auction.
1971 Fiat Dino Coupe
We love the Fiat Dino around here. The absolute pinnacle of Fiat’s heyday through the 60s and 70s and standalone proof of just why Fiat should never be pooh-poohed as the dull, utilitarian black sheep in Italy’s sexy, sporting automotive history. I’m not sure, though, that even we would have ordered one new in this ‘effluence brown’ paintwork, but hey! It’s still a Dino Coupe.
The estimate seemed reasonable (not too long ago we were watching LHD 130 Coupes fetch circa £25k in UK sales) and there were no apparent skeletons to be unearthed in the condition report. The paintwork was described as finished to a very high standard and the only minor flaws mentioned were a couple of split seams on the original upholstery. The fact that bidding ended on this rare beauty at just £29k astonished us. Had we dug down the back of the italicar sofa a bit deeper and sold a few kidneys, we’d have snapped this one up for sure. If for no other reason than to finally be able to put our father to the test when he next mentions how he used to strip these 2.4 V6 engines down in his lunch hour as a Fiat apprentice.
1974 Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV
How much have you spent on your classic car over the past few years? It ain’t as much as the owner of this GTV, let me bet. There was a stack of invoices totalling well over $200,000 since 2016 for this lovely little 105 coupe. A hefty chunk of which had been ploughed into sorting out the notoriously tricky SPICA fuel injection system. To be honest, though, as nice as it looked there was nothing obvious in the photos making this huge spend apparent.
Sure, it did look in very good condition and the inspection report unearthed no issues beyond a few knicks to the bodywork and a missing knob on the passenger side window winder. But, it didn’t exactly jump out of the catalogue. That could be something to do with the oddly lacklustre photos provided but it seems it didn’t really ignite much passion from bidders either, selling for just $45,000 after a week’s worth of bids. If it’s as good as the history suggests it should be, someone just got themselves a bargain.
2001 Qvale Mangusta
I can be reasonably certain that this is the only auction I’m ever likely to see which includes both generations of the Mangusta. This later reimagining was initially planned to be DeTomaso’s version of the TVR Griffith. The costly R&D stages were almost single-handedly funded by US DeTomaso importer Bruce Qvale. When his relationship soured with Alejandro DeTomaso he took ownership of the designs lock, stock and Holley four barrel.
As you can imagine, this leftfield venture didn’t last very long. Under 300 of these Qvale Mangustas were built between 2000 and 2002, after which the chassis gave birth to the similarly cursed MG XPower SVR. This example had covered just 14k miles from new and had clearly lead a cosseted life. Being brutally honest, we think it is as ugly as sin from almost every angle and there is far too much sharing of cheap, tacky interior parts with the Mustang SVT it inherited its engine from. But, even so, this looked a very reasonable price for such a rare piece of etceterini.
1996 Alfa Romeo Spider 2.0 Twin Spark
Now, before you all start shipping your 916 Alfas off to the States after seeing what this one fetched, let us preface it with the fact that this particular Spider had covered just 15k miles from new. Even in Europe, where these Twin Spark powered models are still readily available at comparitively little cost, such a low mileage example would surely command a hefty premium.
Stateside though, this thing must have looked like a UFO from another planet. Looking at it with our professional Alfa 916 specialists glasses on, it looked okay but we did think the paintwork presented very ‘swirly’ and the engine bay, with its early tin-topped CF1 lump, was pretty scruffy for a car with such little use. There were plenty of underside photos, though, and all looked very good indeed on the floorpan (pesky spring pan arms included).
Does this signal a sudden mass emigration of mid-90s Alfas across the pond? Who knows. But it will be interesting to see what the US market makes of a V6 GTV or Spider when these soon become of age to be legally imported.
1998 Ferrari F355 Spider
The late 90’s into the early 00’s was probably the last time we paid any attention to any car coming out of Modena. I couldn’t actually tell the difference between a SF90 and an F8, truth be told, but the F355 is our era. Maybe it’s the Famke-Janssen-in-Goldeneye effect, or perhaps we spent too much time on Sega’s F355 Challenge videogame, but the F355 is peak ‘rari around here.
And this one seemed the ideal candidate to us. If you’re buying something as ridiculous as a Ferrari sportscar, why do it by halves? Buy one in screaming, unashamed yellow, have the roof cut off and go all out. This had covered 43k miles and benefitted from the 6-speed manual transmission (in fact, our waning interest in Ferrari roadcars probably has a direct correlation with the disappearance of that legendary click-clack, gated gearshift). Now, we don’t purport to be either experts in Ferrari F355 values nor the US specific market but, wow, this looked like the buy of the entire sale to us. Coming in at £38k under the hammer, even by the time you’ve added on fees and taxes, this is a country mile below what you’d pay for any F355 Spider in the UK.
1994 Ferrari 348 Spider
If we are fans of the F355, we absolutely bloody adore the 348. We can trace our love of this maligned model back to an original road-test report in Autocar in which the author declared the 348 to be a ‘violent widowmaker’. Get one slightly off balance and it will bite - hard. To our ten-year-old, Italian-car-fanatic ears this sounded like a challenge - we were proven Outrun aces, so we could tame the unruly 348 surely?
This Spider was finished in the correct combination of red with black leather and hood, and had covered under 8k miles over its 27-years. It appeared practically factory fresh in the photos, with cellophane wrapping still on the floor mats and the delicate red lettering still present on the gearbox housing. Again there was very little info provided in the documentation section for registered bidders (there is actually a big discrepancy in this field between the European lots and the American - entries Stateside barely get a Twitter description whereas the cars from the continent are largely exhaustively detailed) so we’re not sure if there was something in this car’s history to put serious collectors off, but it was surprising not to see it scrape into a sale.
Estimate - $75,000 - $90,000
Hammer Price - $68,000 (UNSOLD)
Overall, a much more conservative auction with nothing running away like, say, the Lamborghini Countach in February’s sale and a surprising percentage of very nice looking cars failing to meet reserve.
Particularly so for the European lots - perhaps here buyers’ confidence is being affected by third-waves of the corona virus popping up? But even in the US sections of the sale, where indications in most other financial markets (post Biden’s inauguration) are largely positive, cars seemed to struggle and prices looked restrained to us.
Is this just a blip or indicative of a trend in the classic car market? Well, we won’t have to wait long to work that one out because there’s another Open Road sale coming up in just a few weeks. We’ll see you all then!