2003 456 at Bonham's May 21

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24132/lot/45/

Will be interesting to see how this one does. Surely it will get close to the high estimate.

 

Certainly will be interesting, being another "456M commodity car" with 458Ks

 

I drifted off to sleep thinking about it last night. Sometime during the night the figure 229K Eur flashed through my mind, but I didn't catch whether it was before or after commission Let us see if that turns out to be anywhere near the actual result.

 

Well, 229K EUR certainly wasn't the number. On the plus side, good to know that my dreams don't mean anything.....

I'm very surprised it sold so low - great buy at that price.

 

Haha slightly above 100K (plus fees) for a basically brand new, 456M 6-speed time machine with mere parking lot mileage? Heck, Maranellos in highly questionable condition fetch that much these days.

When will the world wake up to the lure of a 2+2 Ferrari with V12 firepower under the hood? Really, 456s and 612s have got to be among the best Ferrari buys out there nowadays. Next bargain stop: FF - in a few years.

 

105K Euro + 15% Premium + 21% VAT yields 146K Euro cash out of pocket for the sale.

At the 1.12$/Euro exchange rate, that's right at $163,640 to drive away.

Nevertheless, given the mileage, that really does still seem like quite the deal.

 

Eric, the 21% VAT would only ever be calculated on the 15% Buyer's Premium and not the total.

Auction houses generally don't include the VAT in their reported values as the consequences of the VAT to be applied will vary depending on whether or not the car is sold to an individual (who would suffer it) or to a VAT registered trade buyer (who should be able to reclaim it).

However, if we assume that an EU resident private person is the proud new owner of this wonderful 500kms 456M GT, he will have most likely have had to pay €124k ($135k) to 'drive' it away - being the €120,750 'Sold for' price plus €3,308 of Belgian VAT (21% of the 15% Buyer's commission.)

 

Appreciate the information. I misread the info block on the Bonham's site as to what the VAT would apply to you. On reread, you're entirely correct.

With the VAT only applying to the premium, that tax rate on the buyer is substantially less than the sales tax applied by most states in the US which applies to the purchase price. A bit over 7% here in the lovely state of Taxachusetts. Is there no tax on the purchase price at all? Just the VAT on the premium? Perhaps I am assessing prices from a wrong perspective, but I always try to look at what the actual cash expense of a transaction is to compare value and price trends. At the end of the day, it always seems to me that what a buyer is willing to accept and spend out of pocket is the real measure. Whether you give it to the seller, the auction house, or the tax man, its all real money.

Given all that, $143k all in is a pretty good deal on that car.

 

Not sure where your $143k figure comes from but I gave you an incorrect USD figure..

The all-in cash purchase price here was of €124,058 (e.g. the €120,750 Sold for price plus €3,308 of VAT). That is circa $139k today (and not $135k).

VAT within Europe is fairly complex. There is supposed to be 'duty free' movement of goods between member states but the concept has limits in practice and a Portuguese resident buyer would have to suffer a rather salty import duty if he was to register it in Portugal for example.

However within the core EU countries, there would be no further VAT (and no additional import duty to pay) so a French or UK resident could have bought this German registered car in Belgium and there would be nothing further to pay (beyond what he paid to Bonhams).

I agree with your 'what's it going to cost me in cash terms' approach but think about the poor old vendor! He will have had to suffer the Seller's commission and VAT on that so he might have only pocketed €92k/$104k.

What is the true value of this car? The €124k that the new owner has just paid or the €92k that the vendor received on the day?

The new owner would need to see a 34% appreciation in price (a hammer price of €141,135 leading to a Sold for price of €162,306 for him to net €124,058 if he chose to sell through another prestige auction house such as Bonhams)

Every time I do this calculation I remember the first rule of selling at auction:

1. Dont.
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Even so, the current buyer should make out much better on resale than the original owner, who would have paid at least $225K for the car in 2003, incurred 10 years of insurance and storage costs (until selling to the current owner in 2013) and enjoyed precious little time driving it.

I would have made a play for this car had it been in the U.S. or had I had the ability to register and keep it in Europe. It's one of the more striking 456's I've seen in many years of looking at them. It's also made me realize the M interior is a big improvement over the original, at least visually.

 

I don't believe the mileage to be honest. That car was road registered 2003 and not driven. Doing that is complete nonsense.
What should one do with this car? Store it another 15 years? Bring it alive for 15k Euro?
We will see the car back on the market very soon, I'm pretty sure.

 

Same car http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/456-550-575-sponsored-bradan/547914-456-m-gt-bonhams-auction-500-km.html

 

Plugged in an incorrect exchange rate....my bad

Hah!! Couldn't agree more. Auctions, because of these calculations seem to me to serve only 2 positive purposes for the vendor. One, need to move it right now!! And willing to take the financial hit to control that timing. Two, the car is so rare or obscure that you have to take the hit to make sure the visibility is high enough to be noticed by a small enough potential pool of buyers.

If the car is at all common (and in this context, a 456M would be common, perhaps a limited number of them built, but not 312P rare or 250 LM expensive to need a very select buyer set), then a seller or vendor would do much better to list here and other venues like DuPont or Hemmings or such and wait out being found by that guy on the hunt for model, color, etc.

While I might feel bad for the vendor only taking the €92k/$104k as yield out of this sale, I do generally set at least my internal clock for values and prices by the cash outlay of the last buyer. In this case, the €124k. That's the amount I would have to expect to put in to make the next deal move forward.

I appreciate all your comments and input. Thanks.

 

No doubt the original owner took a good chunk of pain here. And no joy of driving to make it feel even the slightest bit better. I really wonder what the vendor here paid the original owner a couple of years ago to take it off his hands and now bring it to the auction. I suspect all the pain lives with the original....this vendor is probably making a modest little markup for playing his role and bringing the car back out into the world.

 

As MogulBoy's analysis shows, it will be difficult to get the money out if re-auctioned without some significant price growth in the 456 market. 15k Euro to bring it alive and then drive the heck out of it almost seems to make the most sense.

As asgor notes, the market still doesn't fully appreciate or value the 456 and M for either the V-12 or the Pininfarina design quite yet. Still need a doubling of prices to get to the magic point of sticker price revisited, no less sticker price inflation adjusted.

So indeed, maybe another 15 years in the time capsule might be warranted. Damn shame if that is what happens.

 

Mogulboy, I was wondering where you had gone, when reading this thread. I feared you had gone the way of gated manual gearboxes in Ferraris. Good to see you back and keeping auction reports correctly edited.

There is a school of thought that says rarity in the relatively mass produced modern Ferraris is achieved post-facto by delivery mileage examples. I'm not sure this result proves this, but then, at the risk of being controversial, four seat Ferraris have never become that valuable.

 

Clearly, it was the very last of the 250 class to get promoted, and even then it's not the Belle of the Ball, but.....

250 GTE prices north of $400k would argue against the ideal that the 2+2s never rise.

When my brother and I sold our 250 GTE back in '78-79 for about 15k, we thought it had pulled pretty good money. Today, $450k would be more like the target. Inflation adjustment would have that $15k in '78 at ~$60k today, so 7.5-8x actual appreciation. It just takes 40 years. Perhaps my son will be happy we are keeping the 456M!