Barn Find 1957 356A Speedster Sold For $665,500!

Wow...That is insane (in a good way) Great car, story and ownership history.

 

nothing like 3x the estimate

 

Oh my

 

Breaks the previous record set a month ago in Belgium for a perfectly restored 1600 Pre A

 

it is not a good idea to cosmetically restore this car. The original patina, condition, and records are the reasons behind the record price.

 

the round of price increases in recent years has brought a lot of rusty rubble from the breakers to market by the flippers cashing in on windfall gains... it is good to see quality originals separate themselves in the market place from the cars known by the cliche' "pigs with lipstick" that have blurred the lines of what is good and what is junk

 

When the auction company brings the car to auction all dirty, isn't this a bit of what home sellers do (me included) --have fresh flowers installed, music playing ,etc? in other words, the buyer then can tell himself that he "barn found" the car because it looks freshly found. But in reality a barn finder found it and flipped it untouched.

I am not questioning the provenance--that is very well presented.

What I am trying to do is come up with a rationale for the high price. So the only thing I can think of is that being a one-owner car covered with dirt it gives the buyer at auction a chance to re-play the "discovery," this time with himself in the lead role as the discoverer. Later it will be forgotten who actually found it because the buyer at auction will be getting all the accolades.

It reminds me of when I interviewed a fellow who found a rare prewar French classic car with coachbuilt bodywork in a dumpy neighborhood. It took him five years to wrest it from the owner and then he restored it, but had to sell it because of divorce. Now I see the present owner is displaying it with a sign saying he "discovered" it, so what we're seeing is you buy the car so you can get the credit for finding it.

 

I had the car inspected and bid on it.

It was a one owner original paint original everything car.
The interior was incredible as was the top.
It had some work to do outside, but you could basically leave the paint the way it was.

Plus the color combination of aquamarine blue metallic and red interior are the most desired

A car like this won't come up - when? The Seinfeld speedster he bought wasn't in this condition and was a respray.

That's why there was such strong interest.

 

Some of you folk be too young to know that actress Lana Turner was reportedly discovered when sitting on a stool at the soda fountain in a drugstore in Hollywood. I liken the bringing-a-car-with-dirt "as found" to an auction
as sort of offering role-play fantasy. You,the bidder, get to replay-the-discovery.

It's like ,sometime after she was discovered, some lecherous movie producer tells the guy that found her "I wanna meet her, but tell her I want her to go back to that drugstore on a certain date and time and let me discover her."

 

Oh, I like. It perfectly matches my '58 blue/red speedster. Let me know when you get tired of it!

 

Looks great.

We match! Though my '58 is the flat aquamarine. I did have a '56 speedster that was acquamarine metallic blue with red, though I sold that. Your coupe is even more dramatic as there is more blue to be seen than on the speedster.

I did really want the one owner blue/tan one that just sold but that price is too much compared to the value I placed on it. I don't begrudge a buyer willing to pay that high as there won't likely ever be another one.