Bonhams had a relatively quiet sale at Pebble Beach this year with one or two exceptions. The result that really stands out from the numbers is this McLaren F1 though. It achieved a staggering $15,620,000, a record for the model at auction!
The car Bonhams sold last night was 044 was a U.S. road legal car, converted by Ameritech shortly after it was purchased. It was recently returned to its original form with all the conversion pieces retained to be sold as part of the lot. Just seven of the 64 McLaren F1’s produced were federalized for US roads.
This car was fitted with an original Base Silver paint and a black/gray Connolly leather interior. The interior features red coloured panels for the central driver’s seat.
The original owner took delivery of the car in 1996 at McLaren’s factory. Together with two of his closest friends, he took the ultimate road trip beginning at the factory. They put just over half of the miles on the cars odometer, travelling through France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, before returning to Woking.
At Pebble Beach in 2010, Gooding & Gooding sold a very similar federalized McLaren F1 at a relative bargain of $3,575,000, chassis number 062. Another similar car, chassis 066, crossed Gooding & Gooding’s auction block at Pebble Beach 2013 too, achieving a $8,470,000 hammer price. The McLaren F1 has taken just 5 years to double in value!
Bonham’s headline lots included a 1965 Ferrari 275 GTB Alloy Long-Nose which sold for $3,080,000 and a 1955 Lancia Aurelia B24S Spider America $1,265,000. There was quite a large number of cars that failed to find buyers though. Most notably, a 1956 Maserati 300S which had pre-sale estimates of $6-7 million but could only reach $5.1 million, a 1963 Jaguar E-Type Lightweight Competition which failed to sell at $8.2 million and a 1958 Ferrari 250 GT ‘Tour De France’ Alloy Berlinetta.
