A report from Byron International – serving clients for 40 years
The Festival of Speed gets bigger each year and Friday saw huge crowds braving the heatwave but reflecting the new age, the new Chinese silent electric car brands were predominant as you crossed the bridge into the main arena.
It was a strange contrast looking across at tomorrow’s world while standing watching the Formula One cars of yesteryear racing up the hill in a cacophony of noise, leaving a trail of oil fumes and thrilling spectators.
Only one pure electric car in the Bonhams inventory, an early Tesla Roadster among a varied selection promising an interesting sale. Like every sale, there was a prelude of Automobilia and on the rostrum, Toby Wilson was bringing his section to an end with a sale of registration numbers. The room was filling up with people ready for the cars but they became silent as the bidding for the registration JB 1 began to go stratospheric – applause rang out as the hammer came down at £530,000 (£608,600 with premium) and when Jamie Knight took over for the cars, he must have thought he was in for a great day.
But it started with a whimper – three No Reserve cars delivering disappointment for their sellers, especially a 2010 Morgan estimated at £35,000 that sold for just £9,500 (£10,925 with premium). Some respectability came back with the first of the Astons, a very sad looking DB6 Automatic in need of total restoration that sold for £80,000 (£92,000 with premium) actually above estimate!
The poor start continued with 5 of the first 12 lots not finding a new home but any statistician trying to find a correlation between estimates and sales would have been stumped by a 2007 Bugatti Veyron, estimated at £500,000 that sold for £1,350,000 (£1,527,000 with premium).
We soon reached the next Aston, a very pretty Virage Volante its £36,000 sale price (£41,400 with premium) was almost a match for the £38,000 achieved by a similar car at Cliveden last Tuesday.
Then along came another auction anomaly – a 1992 Mazda RX7 that had appeared in the film The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift. Said to be one of two cars that survive, it was estimated at £250,00 but sold for £800,000 (£911,000 with premium).
This success was followed by disappointment when a lovely Metro 6R4 Rally car couldn’t get a sale even with a connection to Colin McRae but Jamie Knight signed off with a beauty of a Mercedes 300SL Roadster selling for £760,000 (£866,200 with premium)
Richard Stafford took to the rostrum in a very similar style to Knight and even acknowledged him as “the master” – they forget what made the late Robert Brooks, the real master, was his effortless and continuous reference to the features and benefits of the lot he was selling. Far better than the repetitively calling bids that characterises too many auctions and auctioneers.
Lower expectations and pricing than the Mazda for the next Aston, a DB6 Mark2 saloon that saw the hammer at £155,000 (£178,250 with premium). But better news with a lovely DB4 series V in its Silver livery, looking every inch a car for 007 – spirited bidding took her to the sold column at £310,000 (£345,000 with premium).
Another Virage, a left hand drive 6.3 litre saloon found a new home at £54,000 (£62,100 with premium).
But once more, our observations on the poor performance of auctions on Feltham cars was borne out with the final two Astons – a fine DB Mark III was bid to just £115,000 whilst an equally beautiful DB2/4 Mark II Drophead Coupe saw bidding stop at £140,000.
A disappointing 65% sales rate for Bonhams against RM’s 76%, was compensated by a few huge results and with two major sales in the week, are there some conclusions to draw?
We were interested to hear amongst the normal auction notices at both auctions this week, acknowledgement that the seller could bid for their own lot up to the bottom reserve. This may not be news but prefacing the sale with this notice was unfamiliar.
There are always anomalies between estimates and results creating suspicion that optimism when sellers are signing up for an auction is not always realised at sale time. Taking the averages at Cliveden, for example, the 84% of estimate achieved does not seem out of the way and with results always quoted with a balancing premium, that difference is not obvious to the marketplace.
Together with the retention of the rights to sell cars that don’t make the grade at auction, the playing field for the market is less than level and makes the buyers and sellers’ job of assessing values harder than it needs to be.
Enjoy the sunshine and let’s see what August brings.
For full results from the Festival of Speed follow the link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PrSB8P0a2FTBY3M1_Pa7m4FcKdKksgi0/view?usp=sharing
© BYRON INTERNATIONAL
