The first auction of valuable vintage and youngtimers held by RM Sotheby’s in Munich in November might hardly have been more successful for the company. Of the 73 vehicles on offer – seven motorcycles and 66 passenger cars – only seven cars remained, the rest found a new owner. A sales quota of 90.5 percent is one of the rare occurrences at auctions of precious automobiles.
The bottom line is that the result spoke for itself. A total of EUR 23,500,610 rang in the cash register that evening, making the auction house’s first appearance in the Bavarian capital the most successful auction of classic vehicles ever held in Germany. Interested parties from a total of 44 countries submitted their bids partly on site, partly by telephone and partly via the Internet, which made bidding a global event.
In the end, auctioneer Marcus Görig, the company’s vehicle specialist for the German market, was delighted with the auctioneers’ November festival: “Coming to Germany for the second time and to Munich for the first time gave us a record result that exceeded all expectations. Many interested parties were in person in the hall, others were there by telephone or Internet. The atmosphere was downright electric.”
As might be expected given the venue, BMW models made up a large part of the offering. The “Bavarian Legends Collection” alone comprised 32 cars, the years of construction of which represented the development of the brand from before the Second World War to the end of the last century. 19 of these vehicles brought in more than double the originally planned estimate.
A 1980 BMW M1 that once belonged to former racing driver and M1 manager Jochen Neerpasch changed hands for 792,500 euros. A 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL, which had previously been valued at 220,000 euros, achieved an equally outstanding result at 578,750 euros. Examples of other youngtimers also performed excellently. A 1997 BMW M3 Evolution with a 3.2-litre six-cylinder engine and just 2752 kilometers on the clock fetched 286,250 euros – more than seven times the amount originally planned. At the top of the BMW range was a two-seater 1958 BMW 507 Roadster designed by Albrecht Graf von Goertz, of which only 252 examples rolled off the production line. The vehicle was worth 1,917,500 euros to the bidder.
But BMW’s competitor Mercedes was also impressive. The youngtimer icon, the 190 E 2.5-16 Evolution II, sold for a whopping 365,000 euros. Star of the Mercedes line-up was an 84-year-old Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster, which Sotheby’s fetched an impressive €2,007,500, showing that the best pre-war models still play a significant role in today’s market.
Tennis star Roger Federer appeared at the Munich auction for a good cause and contributed a 2022 Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E-Performace, which the Swiss had personally helped to design. The good piece brought in 212,750 euros, which should now benefit a non-profit tennis project in London.
Recently, vehicles with only a few years on the sheet metal have played an increasingly prominent role on the high-priced sports car market. This was also evident in Munich. A 2017 Ferrari F12 tdf was only just beaten at €1,208,750 by a 2008 Lamborghini Reventón, which sold for €1,748,750. The front runner of the supercar gathering and at the same time the most valuable object of desire among the bidders was a Ferrari F40 from 1991, which made the most persistent bidder poorer by 2,311,250 euros.
After the end of this auction, it can be assumed that RM Sotheby’s wants to organize another auction in Germany as soon as possible. (Hans-Robert Richarz/cen)
