Bonhams auction was held on May 20 at the Fernandina Beach Golf Club in Florida as part of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance . The auction featured 112 cars and seven 19th-century horse-drawn carriages, 90% of which found new owners.
One of the 29 roadsters — Mercedes-Benz 500/540K, 1934 – was a top-sales lot. The car, equipped with a straight-eight engine, a 4-speed manual transmission has got auctioned for $ 4.9 million.
The Clem and Mary Lange collection (13 cars) has shown an equally impressive result. It brought the Bonhams auction house more than $8 million.
The Mercer Type 35K (1913) – the only one car, that has survived to this day — was the main gem of the collection. It was sold for $ 2.425 million.
Duesenberg Model J » Sweep Panel «of 1933 in the «phaeton» body became the second most expensive car from the Lange collection. One of the twelve cars in the original body of Gordon Buehrig was sold for $ 1.655 million. At the same time, the 1934 Bugatti Type 57 convertible, also included in the collection, exceeded the maximum estimated value, and was sold for $ 1.325 million.
In a fight for the buyer, the sales of the Fafard collection showed an equally convincing result. Seven 19th-century horse-drawn carriages were sold for $637,000. A tourist bus Boccardi E Alessio from Turin in 1860, designed for four people, became the most expensive lot of the collection at the end of the auction. It was sold for $162,575.
Two Youngtimers- a 2019 Porsche 911 Speedster and a 2006 Ford GT Heritage Edition — were not lost against the background of pre-war cars and horse-drawn carriages. The German was sold for $ 412.000 while the child of American car-building industry went under the hammer for $387,250. Though, Ford is a better investment than Porsche in terms of uniqueness. This model of the Ford GT was produced in 343 copies against 1948 units of Porsche and painted in a famous «Gulf Oil» livery, in which Ford won the «24 Hours of Le Mans» in 1968 and 1969.
Rupert Banner, Bonhams Group Motoring Director and the auctioneer for the sale:
«We’d missed the atmosphere and fun of the live saleroom over the past 14 months, but the results of this auction were truly worth the wait. Our bidders were clearly pleased to be back in the saleroom with lots of spirited bidding from the floor, which were well-matched by much activity online and on the telephones. We were particularly delighted to have been able to offer several outstanding collections including the Fafard and Lange Collections».