Amelia Island - RM Auctions

I believe it is just you, along with the guys that already own those type of cars.

 

That's not often, huh ?

 

These have been on the verge of "breaking out" since I can remember. They have already if you compare to prices 10 years ago. Sadly, about the only breakout the 4 seat cars tend to have is when they breakout of their configuration and into a rebody of another Ferrari. I am not agreeing it should be this way, but it is.

 

You guys are hilarious.

 

The reality of these cars is unfortunate. They are wonderful GT's and in comparison to period Aston Martins, they are far superior. It is just beyond my comprehension that a DB4 will bring 50% more than a perfect 250 GTE. A side-by-side comparison of capability, purchase price and V12 vs Twin Cam 6 put the nod to the Ferrari. Even the restoration costs are about the same. No advantage there to the Aston.

Either the Aston costs will go down or the Ferrari 2+2 prices will go up. It's only a matter of time before people realize what a deal these cars are or how over-priced the Aston is.

Just my opinion.....

 

Absolutely correct

 

Let the truth be told on FERRARI CHAT

Finally !!!!!! Wisdom !!!!!

 

Saw the Amelia Island car today while searching around for 250 GTEs for sale...

Man, the 250 GTE is, to me, THE Ferrari that I want above all others (of course it may just be because I know I'll never reach the other vintage cars that I like)...

It's too bad (for me, at least) that the current prices are of the "not broken-out" variety, since they're still out of my league... on some level, I hope they don't break out!

But beg borrow or steal, I'm gonna get into one someday - and keep it forever... good thing I'm only 30 - hopefully, that means I've got some time!

 

to make you feel confident, i am 35..... a baby in vintage Ferrari terms....

I am a Dino guy and one of the few of "MY" generation. I can't tell you how many "What type of corvette" questions i get......

My first Ferrari ride was in a single head-light 330 gt 2+2 and it was a blast. I still love that car and would have one to this day.

 

I wish I still had the scruffy 250GTE I had 30 years ago.

 

Ah, Master! This grasshopper is in awe as I fly toward the burning light.

Dale

 

I don't think so. Absolute comparison is not relevant. Aston built very few high end cars, so DB4 is pretty much what owning an Aston Martin is about. That is not the case with Ferrari 2+2s. Best wishes, Kare

 

Oh really?

If these old geezer GTEs and GT's were so desirable they wouldn't be cut up would they? So how many Aston Martins get cut up?

 

That yellow 275GTB/4 looks fantastic! But the estimate seems somewhat high for a regular 4 cam. What do you guys think?


Onno

 

I have bought more than my fair share of "under appreciated" cars over the last few years, and its been my experience that a car that has been under-appreciated for 40 years is most likely going to remain under-appreciated for the foreseeable future. No matter how much I explain why a particular marque or model is interesting or cool to me, most car enthusiasts just smile and nod appreciatively, but they don't suddenly get the urge to go out and buy one, or even change any pre-conceived notions they may have about it.

 

Can't wait to arrive in Jacksonville. The concours has some impressive classes including Porsche 917, Etceterini and Cars of the Cuban Races.

 

I will be at the auction and show. I live about 50 miles away.

 

One of the most reasonable posts on the subject that I've ever read.

 

Yes. The Ferrari's are superior. I have intimate knowledge of both cars, and the Aston is much more agricultural than the Ferrari. The engines are sluggish to rev in comparison and the cars are much more primitive in construction. Any engine from that era that is set up without valve adjustment is just an indication of cost-cutting.

I can't explain the reason that so many get cut up except for the financial gain involved. There have been a few Astons cut up to make fake Zagatos, but yes, the GTE slaughter is much greater. Maybe the price of the real cars that the replicas are replacing dictates the destruction, and that's not something I would comment on as it still is a free country to do what you like with what you own (for now).

 

The only sure way to make money by flipping Ferraris is begining with a lot more money, ask all the sad guys who paid top dollar for Daytona Coupes or 275GTBs in 2007 or 2008. The simple fact is Ferraris are like boats, metal objects into which one pours 100 dollar bills. I have a friend who bought a right hand drive 330GT in 1979 for about today's price of the tool kit. In the madness of the late 80s he had Japanese collectors offering him sight unseen a quarter of a million dollars for the car. He declinded them all, because he just liked the car, his view was, and is, the money he could replace, the car he could not. After that crash his 330 bottomed out at about 2X the price of a tool kit, then in the run up to 2008, right hand drive road country nationals were after him again for big money, and again he kept the car. Driving it still makes him smile.
My advice is: the money is just dirty paper, but the right car is a passport to adventure, so if you have a car you like, and you can't find a better version of it, just drive it and smile. That's a return on your investment you can put in the bank. M

 

I agree with a lot of what's said here, but to be fair the DB4 was first launched in 1958 so it’s a 50’s car in design and technology.

At the time it was the world’s fastest production 4 seater, it achieved several runs from 1-100 mph and to rest in under 30 seconds, quite an achievement in 1958 for a car hand built by old blokes in a shed!

British people from that era get very jingoistic, that is just one reason why in the UK there is such a passion for Astons and especially primitively built DB4’s.

I’m halfway in a glass house here as the DB4 was penned by Touring of Milan !
And the Zagota.........well need i say more.

 

The Aston DB4 - The Italian connection.............

At the age of 95, former Aston Martin Chief Engineer Harold Beach still clearly recalls the enthusiastic comment by company boss David Brown after his first drive of the new DB4 one Sunday morning in 1958. ‘[Technical Director] John Wyer and I had taken the prototype DB4 to David Brown’s farm in Buckinghamshire. It wasn’t normal to take cars out to his farm, but the DB4 was a new car in its entirety – nothing had approached it up to that point.’

Though David Brown had bought the Aston Martin company in 1947 after seeing it offered for sale in a newspaper advertisement, adding the moribund Lagonda company later the same year, the first ‘DB’ Astons had all been developed from existing components: the new car represented the first ‘clean sheet of paper’ design that the ‘DB’ Aston Martin company had ever undertaken.

The search for a new model to replace the existing DB Mk III had begun with the building of a prototype known as Design Project 114, which had a conventional square tube chassis frame with independent front suspension and a De Dion rear axle. However, its body, the work of Frank Feeley, a gifted body designer who had joined Lagonda straight from school in the 1920s, had failed to come up to expectations (‘It wasn’t his best effort by any means,’ recalls Beach) and John Wyer had turned to Italy for inspiration.

In Milan, he had discussed the problem with Carlo Felice Bianchi Anderloni of Carrozzeria Touring, a company that had developed an ingenious ‘Superleggera’ system of bodybuilding for high-performance chassis in which lightweight panels were fastened to a skeleton frame of light metal tubing. Shown the DP114 chassis, Anderloni declared that it was quite unsuitable for Superleggera bodywork and insisted that if his company were to develop a body for the proposed new Aston Martin, it must have a rigid platform chassis.

So Harold Beach was despatched to Milan to learn about the Superleggera ‘construction’ method, and with Anderloni’s assistance developed a suitable platform chassis on which Touring designer Federico Formenti created a fastback coupé of timeless elegance, perfecting its sleek lines by building one-tenth scale models in ‘epowood’ until he was satisfied with the finished shape. Divide the 98-inch wheelbase of the DB4 by the 60.5-inch bonnet length and you get 1.62, a ratio known to architects as the ‘golden section’, the hallmark of a design with perfect proportions since classic times.