January Auction Thread (2025 Edition)

We are in agreement and saying the same thing. Perhaps what I wrote is the problem as maybe it is not so clear.
I think we can say a good GTO ‘can’ make 50-ish MM but in dollars, not Euros.
The more knowledgeable people (than I) that I’ve spoken to were saying 30MM Euros for the LM. What Bruce @375+ is saying today (and I agree) is that the Mercedes result makes us wonder if the 250 LM can reach 30.
Most expensive car to sell at (sealed bid) auction was summer (2022?) MB 300 SLR Coupe for 140+ MM Euros- so the thinking was the Stromlinien would sell for half that. In that case, today’s result was ‘soft’ but still about 51.1 MM more Euros than I have.

 

I wonder if Toto Wolff bought the W196?

 

If I were him, not that I wanted to, I would have bought it.

That way he can drive it bareheaded and no goggles, whilst waving at adoring townsfolk on the side

 

It wasn't a sealed bid auction, but rather a 'standard' live auction with an auctioneer, bidders in the room and on the phones, and only several minutes of bidding as opposed to the multi-day 'Sotheby's Sealed' format. What made it very non-standard was that the whole thing was arranged and executed discreetly and the event was only publicized after it happened.

 

I received an early morning email from RMS with a link to the auction.

 

I'm not sure what you mean, but the event was definitely secretive and unpublicized until after it happened. Early reports didn't even know for sure which car was offered.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220511190737/https://insider.hagerty.com/trends/there-may-be-a-new-world-record-classic-car-sale/

 

I sincerely don't understand these latest Mercedes values - both the Uhlenhaut and this one are easy on the eye, yes, but their racing pedigree isn't that great.

How much money would bring the W196 auctioned in 2013 (a car with outstanding history) if it was auctioned today? Or the Le Mans-winning W194?

 

I have had a very well connected person advise it wasn't even sold but was offered on a lifetime lease..... No idea if accurate

 

Impossible to know. Both were offered in sellers markets so fetched top market valuations, the 2013 W196 was almost double its reserve, ditto the 2022 Uhlenhaut Coupe. And for the right buyer, they were well bought because the W196 was the car Fangio won two races in on the way to winning the 1954 WDC, the Uhlenhaut was one of two, and so on. Today we are in a buyers market and most of the buyers from even a decade ago have moved on or are no longer with us. I don't envisage a 1991/2/3 style crash but until we work out who is buying in the post Baby Boomer era, and the economy settles, we won't see prices like that again. As evidence I posit the two or three 250GTOs, including two very good examples, that have been on offer for two/three years and the Ecclestone collection and all the other amazing cars on the market at the moment, that a decade ago would have fetched then record sums. Today its just stock like these cars were in the late 1990s.

 

As for the W194, how does one price a car that is neither a pure racing car, nor a pure road car. Neither fish nor fowl. Mercedes-Benz have long claimed their W194 is insured for $20 mm and the Le Mans winning example in the McCaw collection SHOULD be double that. On the negative the Le Mans winner was converted to a standard 300SL and tested and later caught fire with some damage. We will probably know after the IMS 250LM sells what value add a Le Mans win and later damage is..... 50%, 100%, 200%?

 

Interesting. That's the same kind of deal Mercedes made with their 300 SLR Roadster #02 some years ago when the deal with Bruce McCaw fell through.

 

The Uhlenhaut Coupé sale was a genius marketing move. Mercedes-Benz quality has been lacking for a while. and people's perception of them as a premier luxury brand even more. The minute that car sold and a Mercedes-Benz became the most valuable car ever by a large margin it gave them a large push to put their name up in the luxury ranks once again. The sale of this GP car shows it's holding. I'm very very curious to see what the 250LM will bring in Paris, and what effect it will end up having on the future sales of GTO's and possibly 06885.

 

Bruce McCaws lease on #0002/55 has now finished, I assume it was a decade (2013-2023?), and it has returned to Mercedes-Benz. Back in the early 2000s Mercedes-Benz did go through a period where they bought the 300SLR in the Henry Ford Museum and were clearly happy to re-acquire all their Silver Arrows. Will be fascinating to see if RM Sothebys can encourage them to offer more cars from their reserve collection, they have something like 3 or 4 W125s, 3 W154s, 2 W165s, 6 W196s and 5 300SLRs. They can only prepare and show and run two of each at a time, one in the museum and one for displays and gentle track use. The rest could be sold

 

Indeed it was. Also, it looked like a very 'private' cocktail party, with a few telephone interlopers for a good mix, and potentially a spot of circus.

 

POA...

C'mon Tim, as usual the 'mystery' of the unknown 'celeb'. Gimme a break Why the Poirot bit? Either say it or don't...just save it.
Ridiculous, I would hate to be known by initials.
This is sort of the " I'd rather have high friends in low places, than low friends in high places" w.... the .uck.

This is worse that the tabloids, I know a guy a that knows a guy that 'knew a guy'
wait, was he / she a guy? Nowadays, that is verboten...

 

I have no reason to doubt the persons direct connections to some of the biggest collectors in the game, but the person himself is a nobody and I won't doxx him on here. Whether its a lease or not is not nearly as important as two - three years later and we don't even know who bought the bloody thing

 

Then why even mention any of it? Really does not matter Tim, you are very right. I love your work, really.

Regards,
Alberto

 

I know someone that was invited to bid and was told that the agreement to purchase the car wasn't exactly conventional (like send money; buy car), so I wouldn't be surprised if it was something like this.

In regard to some of the responses you received - I can appreciate the people who post here that are privy to market details sharing what they can, while also appreciating that they can't share it all. FWIW, I'd much rather have some details than nothing at all... seems an odd expectation to think everything must be disclosed or it's not worth sharing, when talking about people and things of this nature.

 

Totally agree. Its interesting to ponder whether these cars could have fetched more through a private trade or sale but this is a market in flux, trending down and this is how the market decided they were worth at these times, go find another Mercedes SLR, W196 or Le Mans winning Ferrari 250LM

 

Here I go again without naming names, social security numbers and dates of birth, so this might be completely worthless to some, but...

I know someone in the trade who I trust to be honest (I know, I know)... He told me when the sale of 5893 was announced and we spoke again yesterday, that he has a client (whom we'd all be aware of as a genuine buyer at this level) that would have paid a price starting with a '4' in USD, if the car could've been bought off-market and away from the glare of the auction.

This is far from the only time I've heard something like this, so I'm inclined to agree that the LM may have fetched more through another sales avenue... Hard to say for certain, but some potential buyers definitely stayed home.

 

Tom Hartley claims he was asked several years ago to organise a sale for the 250LM and W196 and it came to nothing. I have little doubt the better dealers in the UK and Switzerland and Germany could easily have found buyers for both. Who knows what money but the market was pumping in '21/22 and even pre covid in 2019 it was stronger than late '24/ early '25. With all the various economic issues worldwide I don't imagine the market improving in '25 so this may seem like a very good sale going forth. As a youngster I remember seeing the massive sales in 1990 and the market struggle to sell much of anything in '91 and by '92 every collector car had a 50-80% haircut. The market had spoken, with a roar. Will it happen in 2025 or 2026?

 

Maybe RM offered them a guarantee over the sales price? Not unheard of in the art world....

 

Enzo passed away leading to HUGE speculation in the market. A "sudden and large" economic recession hit very shortly after.

Many who had no idea what they were doing were caught out by a market they didn't understand.

 

I also remember that the late 1980s was the beginning of the banker bonus craze and no respecting banker was going to arrive at the club in anything less than a M3, preferably a 911, executives were into Ferrari and even Lambo territory. Supercar makers who only 5 years ago were near bankruptcy suddenly had 5 year long waiting lists and those hungry enough and with a big enough bonus were willing to spend, spend, spend. I certainly remember the UK car mags talking about people borrowing to buy list spots, gambling that they would be able to sell that list spot, and so on, to 300 - 400% markups on what were often pretty basic sportscars. Its probably not that dissimilar to every gronk buying Tesla shares or Bitcoin, betting someone will pay more....... But then the Dutch believed someone would pay more for those Tulips and the same mentality always fuels every bubble.

 

Some guys weren't even born in 1989 and never heard of January 1990 when everything collapsed.

Marcel Massini