The current record was set in 1987 when a 1931 Bugatti Royale (a rare French built car) was sold by Christie’s for approximately $11 million.  Christie’s expects to break that record by a $1 million when it sells a restored 1939 German racecar, based on a design by Ferdinand Porsche. 

These prices make some big-ticket collector autos that have recently rolled over the auction block sound like real steals.   In January 2007, the largest volume classic car auctioneer, Barrett-Jackson sold a 427 Shelby Cobra for $5,500,000.  Three other auction companies reported sales of cars that tipped the scale over a million dollars.  Russo and Steele dropped the gavel at $1,320,000 for a 1965 Shelby, 427 Daytona Coupe.  A 1937 Duesenberg SJ Cabriolet (fancy way of saying convertible) brought in $2,805,000 for Blenheim, Ontario’s RM Auctions.

Mercedes Benz 540K

The collector car community has turned this high-dollar car feeding frenzy into a semi-annual ritual -- Summer in conjunction with the Pebble Beach concours d’elegance or car show and in January in Arizona. It also brings out the throngs who love to watch the Big Daddy Warbucks live while attending one of the auctions or on the SPEED Channel.

Unfortunately for those of us who rely on these auctions for megabuck vicarious thrills many high dollar cars are sold privately to people who really don’t want you, or me, to know anything about them or what they do with their money.  This makes the auctions even more fun because you get a glimpse behind the curtain surrounding some of the richest people on the planet. 

“You're talking about people with . . . just a tremendous, usually amount of worth, but that are fundamentally car people.  They really love it.  They can afford to buy collections of anything.  They can afford to do just about anything - boats, airplanes, art work, . . . but they choose to have cars,” said McKeel Haggerty, president of Haggerty Classic Insurance, the company that insures many of these cars.

Shelby Daytona Coupe