Most Expensive Cars Sold in Auction

Most Expensive Cars Sold In Auction

This is a list of the most expensive cars sold in auto auctions through the traditional bidding process, consisting of those that attracted headline grabbing publicity, mainly for the high price their new owners have paid. A 1954 Mercedes-Benz race car sold for a record $30 million at an auction in England on July 12, 2013. While collectible cars have been sold privately for more, this is the highest price ever paid for a car at a public auction. The record was previously held by a 1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa Prototype which sold at an auction in California in 2011 for $16.4 million. The Mercedes W196R Formula 1 race car, powered by a 2.5-litre 8-cylinder engine, was one of a group of race cars that won 9 World Championship-qualifying Grand Prix races in 1954 and '55. The previous record was $16,390,000 for a 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, sold on August 21, 2011 in an auction hosted by Gooding & Company in Pebble Beach Equestrian Center, the site of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Pebble Beach, California, United States.

The 1904 Rolls-Royce 10 hp Two-Seater is currently listed on the Guinness World Records as the most expensive veteran car to be sold, at the price of US$7,254,290 ($8,031,993 in 2013), on a Bonhams auction held at Olympia in London on December 3, 2007.

This list only consists of those that have been sold for at least $3 million in auction sales during a traditional bidding process, inclusive of the mandatory buyers premium and does not include private, unsuccessful (failing to reach its reserve price, incomplete) and out of auction sales.

Read more about Most Expensive Cars Sold In Auction:  Common Contributing Factors, World Records, Annual Records, Absolute Record

Famous quotes containing the words expensive, cars, sold and/or auction:

    Those of us who are in this world to educate—to care for—young children have a special calling: a calling that has very little to do with the collection of expensive possessions but has a lot to do with the worth inside of heads and hearts. In fact, that’s our domain: the heads and hearts of the next generation, the thoughts and feelings of the future.
    Fred M. Rogers, U.S. writer and host of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. “That Which is Essential Is Invisible to the Eye,” Young Children (July 1994)

    The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.
    Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)

    Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
    Bible: New Testament, Matthew 13:45,46.

    The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.
    Maya Angelou (b. 1928)