Category: For Sale

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For Sale

At Auction: 1934 Lagonda Rapier

Lately I’m smitten with pre-war monopostos; often as much for the idea of them as for the machines themselves.

To be more specific, part of me wishes it was still possible to buy chassis and engine packages from manufacturers and then drop it off at your local coachbuilder. What a glorious age that must have been. When a particular chassis/engine combination might have dozens of variants on the road or track, with many of them being truly unique creations. Not cheap when you ding the bodywork, but a marvelous era for displaying individuality through transportation that no amount of ground effects and neon underlights and vinyl graphics and wings can replicate today.

This Lagonda Rapier being offered as part of Coy’s Ascot auction this weekend certainly fits that description. Just compare these photos to the more sedate—though no less beautiful—road-going bodywork that most Rapiers bore when they rolled out of a small British coachbuilder’s workshop. This gorgeous example is sure to draw plenty of attention and I don’t doubt she’ll meet her £50,000 – £70,000 estimate.

Like many of the surviving Rapiers, the machine on offer has had her powerful but fragile Coventry Climax-tuned 1104cc engine swapped. Here it’s with a beefier AC 2 liter unit. With this combination, the car was campaigned for many years by former Vintage Sports Car Club president James Crocker. More recently, the car has been campaigned and partially restored by an unnamed Swiss collector. With the recent rebuild of her engine, new crank, pistons and other bits, she’s bound to be a lovely competitor.

I find that I grow more and more interested in the pre-war group at the vintage events I attend. It’s hard to listen to them pass by and not think of the barnstorming thrill seekers that originally wrestled these giant beasts through around-the-house races in villages throughout Europe. It conjures such a romantic vision that, instead of my old mood of simply waiting through the prewar group to get on to the 50s and 60s racers, I look forward to the old girls’ time on the track with eager anticipation.

I do find it hilarious that part of Coy’s lot detail page (with more information and photos) is cribbed from the Lagonda Rapier Wikipedia entry.

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For Sale Porsche

Porsche 917/30-004 Brings in $4.4Million at Gooding. Yowza!

This is what it looks like when a 1973 Porsche 917/30 Can-Am Spyder sells for $4.4Million (inclusive of buyer’s premium). Gooding’s sale of the Drendel Family Collection as part of this year’s Amelia Island auction had some marvelous Porsches, with several ex-Martini team cars, a 935, 962, and many other exotic Porsche racing models.

917/30-004 was to be Mark Donohue’s 1974 car, but rule changes delayed and ultimately halted construction for the Can-Am series. The car was completed and sold to Australian Porsche importer, Alan Hamilton, who displayed the car in her plain white livery in his Melbourne showroom. Porsche reacquired the car in 1991 and restored her in the 1973 Can-Am championship winning Penske-Sunoco livery she wears today.

Just sit back and take in these amazing statements from the lot detail page:
The Most Powerful Road-Racing Car Ever Built
An Undisputed Masterpiece of Automotive Engineering
One of Only Six Examples Built
Sold New to Australian Porsche Importer Alan Hamilton
Meticulously Restored in Penske Racing’s 1973 Sunoco Livery
Rennsport Reunion, AvD Oldtimer Grand Prix and Monterey Historics Participant
Featured Prominently in Pete Lyons’ Can-Am Cars in Detail
Eligible for Leading Historic Races and Porsche Gatherings
The Ultimate Evolution of the Porsche 917

Some of these things sound like hyperbole, until you realize they’re mostly true.

Rumor has it that she ended up in Seinfeld’s collection.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale Video

Trusting Your Stevedore

This is what it looks like when your GT40 is being off-loaded on a Brizilian dock in 1969. I’m sure there were some nervous folks on the docks that day watching this incredible machine twisting in the air high over the deck of the ship. Tense moments for sure. This footage is of GT40 chassis GT/40P 1083, currently on offer from Fantasy Junction. She looks as beautiful and determined today as when she was winning races for Sidney Cardoso and his Colegio Arte e Instrucao (C.A.I.) Racing team.

More information and a TON of photos on Fantasy Junction’s detail page. Thanks for the heads up, Paul!

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For Sale Porsche

Available in California: Ex Vic-Elford Porsche 908/3

There are few teams more iconic and fondly remembered that Porsche’s works effort at the 1970 Targa Florio. Most of that imagery and most of those remembrances, however, are of the winning 908/3 of Jo Siffert and Brian Redman. Surely, #12 has earned her place in motorsport’s hall of heroes, but let’s not forget Vic Elford’s machine currently on offer from the Southern California sports and racing broker Tillack. Chassis 007 was no also-ran. She qualified second for the 1970 Targa. And while she may not wear the Gulf livery that her teammates did, she is no less beautiful; some would say even more so.

I adore the 908 Spyder. If you look at Porsche’s endurance racers through the era, they all make a pretty straight line right up to the 917. The 906, 910, 907 lineage represents a fairly consistent evolution of design. You can even add the 908/2 to that lineup. All of them pointing right at what would become of Porsche’s endurance racing efforts. The 908/3 Spyder stands out as a design oddity for the marque. The boxy little go-kart of a machine is no less beautiful than the sleek lines of the other closed-top endurance racers from Stuttgart, but there’s something of a rebel in her contours and stance. Which is, of course, what I love about her.

This car had some longevity as well, after an update to her bodywork and livery, she competed—and took 3rd—at the 1971 Nurburgring 1000km. Now she’s been lovingly taken back to her 1970 Targa Florio livery and bodywork as part of a 2000 restoration by Moorespeed Ron Greuner at MORSPEED (the restoration workshop is now a part of Jerry Woods Enterprises). (Editor’s Note: Thanks to David, who commented below correcting me on this restoration attribution. I have reached out to Tillack for confirmation on the restoration history). I think it a good decision. The Martini livery she wore in 1971 was all well and good, but there’s something about these sunburst stripes that really does it for me. I can even look past the Christmas colors, which isn’t easy.

I can’t imagine someone wanting more from a racing machine than this 908/3 has to offer. Go pick it up; call up Jerry and have him meet you at Laguna Seca in his #12; and get to the business of recreating the 1970 Targa Florio.

Also, give me a ride. More photos and details at Tillack’s site.

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Automotive Art For Sale

Stefan Marjoram’s Automotive Advent Calendar

Stefan wrote in to tell me about his latest wonderful automotive art project. Each day leading up to December 24th, he’s releasing a different postcard-sized pencil and watercolor sketch. If I know Stefan’s stuff, they’re bound to all be fantastic. But then he does us all one better—he’s selling the original piece each day through his new Etsy store for a paltry £24. The images above are the releases for December 1 and 2—each with their respective racing number. Fun!

Hey Stefan, if you do one, set aside the Porsche 550 one for me, eh? 😉

Check Stefan Marjoram’s sketch blog for the fresh calendar item daily, and try to be the first to that Etsy shop each day.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale

Available in Italy: 1949 DeLuca Fiat-Lancia Sport

How is it possible to look at this stunning 1949 De Luca Fiat-Lancia Sport Special and not fall in love? It’s an Italian representation of a hot-rodding zeitgeist that was taking hold worldwide in at the end of the 1940s.

This bare utility is one of the things I so love about early barchettas. The interior could not be more sparse. The exposed backsides of the door skins attest to the lightness that was built into this special for (by?) Senore De Luca, “the wolf of Calabrese” (note the amazing wolf head mascot). I’ve had no luck in finding De Luca’s racing history, but sellers Cristiano Luzzago say the car has period appearances at the Circuito di Posillipo (probably the ’49 running of the GP Napoli though I find no matching car in their entry list) and Grio delle Calabrie.

I adore everything about it—the Stance, the utilitarian design, the minimal embellishment. I have no real reason for this, but the leaf-spring front end is something I’m kind of obsessed with lately. I think it’s something to do with the backyard shed and garage engineered use of the leaf-spring front suspension in everything from the T-Bucket to the Cooper 500s. I just see those leaves poking out where we’re used to seeing A-arms, and my head spins. That’s what this Fiat frame meets Lancia Ardea drivetrain really is when we get down to it: The early Italian version of the later hated Garagistas.

Let’s face it, if this didn’t have the words “Fiat-Lancia” attached to it, you might think it was a garage-built Southern California custom with a Ford V8 under the hood. In many ways, it is. And I love this little street rod for it.

More photos and details on Cristaino Luzzago’s inventory page.

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Ferrari For Sale Vintage Racing Advertising

Phil’s 212

For Sale
My 212 Ferrari… In perfect tune and in showroom condition
Top Speed… 130 mph • 0 to 60…7.5 sec. • 0 to 100 mph…16sec. • Perfectly behaved in city traffic (getting 20 mpg) • Road tested in Nov. ’52 issue of Road and Track • Price…$7,800.
Write or phone Phil Hill, 5670 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood 28, HEmpstead 3165

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Classic Sportscar For Sale

Accessibility

I always assumed that an open-wheeled racer would be leagues easier to maintain than a closed-wheel car. After all, there’s little or no bodywork to deal with: You can more immediately locate and diagnose a problem, you don’t have to spend additional maintenance hours removing body panels, and you don’t have to distort your arms in impossibly ornate ways to reach around things.

It’s all just there.

This 1975 Datsun 280Z currently available on eBay, though, makes me wonder if it’s all just in the setup. This looks just about as accessible as it can be. I don’t know if it conforms to any particular vintage regulations, but this looks almost as easy to work on as a Formula Ford of the same vintage.

Buy it Now at $45K, bidding is open until Sept. 22.

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Automotive Art For Sale Grand Prix

The Ultimate Garage Wall Decor

Hard to imagine something better than this for your garage automotive studio wall.
Coys is offering this Jay Burridge sculpture as part of their upcoming Nurburgring auction on 13th August 2011. Look closer though, this isn’t just a sculpture inspired by Ayrton Senna’s MP4/6. It’s made OF one of Ayrton’s MP4/6s.

McLaren Formula cars are not in collectors’ hands—like the early Ferrari formula cars, each is dismantled for post-race analysis and reused or destroyed. This bodywork, though was given to Jay by Ron Dennis as the source material for the sculpture and even shows signs of wear from race use. There are peeling sponsor stickers, there are nicks and scratches from a weekend’s race.

The unfortunate timing of the completion of the sculpture, however, forced it into storage. Props to Burridge and Ron Dennis for not selling the sculpture in the wake of Senna’s death. Instead the sculpture seems to have been displayed at a corporate event, then hidden away—reemerging in ’04 for a Senna tribute at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Coys estimates it will bring €35,000 – €45,000. More at their lot details page.

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For Sale

This Weekend at Auction: Alfa Romeo TZ Coupé

Race history at the Targa Florio? Check. Le Mans? Yup. Tour de France? Uh-huh. Monza 1000KM? You bet.

Say any one of these things about any single example of a car and you’ll have my attention. Say all of them about a single car and you’ll have a lot of people’s attention. When the car you’re talking about is an exquisite 1964 Alfa TZ Coupé, you’ll have everyone’s attention.

Alfa Romeo TZ Coupé at LeMans 1964

There’s no question that the TZ is a striking machine. One of only 112 made, any Tubulare Zagato is a rare beast. One of the very few early Audodelta prepped machines (those made before the wider homologation production) and with well documented race history. Hell, it’s damn near unique.

This Alfa-Romeo TZ #750006 is crossing the block this weekend as part of RM’s Ville d’Este auction. And it says something about the caliber of machine that they’re presenting this weekend that the TZ isn’t even one of their featured lots. But if you look a bit beyond the sea of vintage Ferraris on offer (a 275GTB, a Scaglietti 500 TRC Spider, a 375MM Berlinetta) you’ll come to lot 126.

Restored to her 1964 LeMans livery by Piet Roelofs Engineering, she looks aggressive, mean even. Despite the relatively light 150 horsepower that the 1.5liter DOHC straight 4 was pulling, Giampiero Biscaldi and Giancarlo Sala managed 15th overall in the 24 Hours (10th in GT). In a field of Ferrari 330s and GTOs and Porsche 904s, that’s a wonderful result that Scuderia St. Ambroeus must have been pleased with (with her sister car finishing 13th for the team).

A truly stunning example of a remarkable car and a masterpiece of design for Zagato—I do so miss that flat-back era of design. I’d say there’s little doubt she’ll reach her estimate of €475.000-€575.000.

More at RM’s catalog. Previously.

Update: Well, the TZ sure met it’s reserve alright, selling for €627,200.