It doesn’t exactly happen every day, but several times a year we see classic cars selling at auction for eight figures (as in, upwards of ten million dollars). More often than not, they come from Italy (with a Prancing Horse on the nose), sometimes from Germany (with a Silver Star) or even France (adorned by the letters EB). But in Monterey this weekend, RM Sotheby’s set two new records, selling the most valuable cars ever to come from the United Kingdom and from the United States.
The British record was broken by a Jaguar D-Type, namely the one that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1956. “Widely recognized as the most important Jaguar ever made,” the Ecurie Ecosse D-Type finally sold after 15 minutes of frenzied bidding between four bidders for a massive $21,780,000. That’s considerably more than the same auction house achieved last year for an Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato ($14.3m) and McLaren F1 ($13.75m).
As if that weren’t enough, another blue roadster took the record for the most valuable American car ever sold. The honor now belongs to CSX 2000, the very first Shelby Cobra, which (like the aforementioned McLaren) sold for $13.75 million, beating by some margin the record previously held by a 1968 Ford GT40 (in whose development Carroll Shelby was also heavily involved).
The overall record still belongs to a Ferrari 250 GTO, also sold by RM Sotheby’s for $38 million in 2014. The most valuable car sold so far this year is a 1957 Ferrari 335S, sold by Artcurial in Paris for over $35 million.
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