Buy What You Love, Pay What You Should
Columns
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1990 Ferrari 641/2 F1
The buzz at the auction was that this car was unusual and desirable in being completely ready to run with the F1 Clienti. The buyer bought it for that purpose Ferrari entered 1990 with a dream driver lineup. Nigel Mansell was in his second season with the Scuderia and Alain Prost was making his debut…
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1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa
These cars brought Maranello four World Constructors Championships and four victories at Le Mans. Few, if any, cars have a more impressive resume In 1957, the Commission Sportive Internationale contemplated new rules to make sports car racing safer after the 1955 disaster at Le Mans. Anticipating a reduction in capacity for sports cars, Ferrari began…
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1970 Aston Martin DB6 Mk II
Two things kept the price down: British buyers are notoriously suspicious of automatics in “sporty” cars; and it was presented on a cheap set of tires The culmination of Aston Martin’s long-running line of “DB” 6-cylinder sports saloons, the DB6 was introduced in 1965. Aston Martin lengthened the wheelbase by four inches over the DB5…
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1930 Citroën Kégresse “Forestiere” Autochenille
A curious mixture of romantic visionary and practical businessman, André Citroën knew a promising invention when he saw one. French-born Adolphe Kégresse had developed an idea at the behest of his erstwhile employer, Czar Nicholas II, who had wanted a means of adapting his cars to drive across deep snow. Rather than use the heavy…
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Track Day Insurance
High Performance Driver Education coverage insures bad things don’t happen to good people (that’s you) during track days Here’s a man-bites-dog twist to track day crash liability concerns, resulting from a crash at a Dodge Viper Owners Invitational track event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Dodge sponsors such events periodically, and invites Viper owners to…
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The New Reality
The inspiration for this column occurred in March, when I returned from lunch to find an email from a Lusso owner who wanted us to sell his car and net himself $700,000-about $200,000 over the retail price for his Lusso in today’s market. The very next email was from a client who had been web…
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Triumph’s Joan Rivers
When Karmann face-lifted the Triumph TR4 in 1968, there were still some arthritic old bones behind the TR6’s wide smile and smooth skin The age of the biplane fighter lasted from roughly 1915 to 1941, by which time the last of the fabric-covered, fixed-gear aircraft like the Gloster Gladiator and Fiat CR42 were looking quite…
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Something Old, Something New
It’s been nearly ten years since I last drove in the California Mille. Dodge was the primary sponsor then, and I enjoyed the Northern California countryside from behind the wheel of a Viper. After growing up driving Alfas, with their puny 4-cylinder, 80-ci engines, mashing the throttle on a 450-horsepower, 488-ci V10 rocket sled was…
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1964 Volkswagen Type 2 Microbus Deluxe
VW won the hearts of collectors. The best first-generation Ford Econoline would be hard pressed to bring $10k, even with $5k in pennies in the back The Type 2, as its name suggests, was the second variant of the VW Beetle (Type 1), using the same running gear, and was introduced in 1950. Multiple types,…
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1934 Auburn 1250 Salon Cabriolet
Even at $253,000, this car is still less than half the price of some Packard V12 Cabriolets {vsig}2009-7_2340{/vsig} This 1934 Auburn 1250 Salon Cabriolet was driven by James Cagney in the 1930s film “The Mayor of Hell.” It was restored over 20 years ago, and it’s been certified by the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club, which…