£1.4 million car sold in record auction

Despite a rather static market for new car sales this year, some people clearly have money for motors as auction house, Bonhams reports a record £6.1 million sale at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Top of the lots was a 1932 Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 Spider achieving £1.4 million - one of 14 cars breaking the £100k mark.

Also appealing to the collectors were a 1904 Panhard-Levassor 35hp two-seater, chain driven model (£452,500) and a 1926 6.24 litre Mercedes-Benz Model K Torpedo Transformable (£441,500).

Bonhams say the Alfa Romeo was perhaps “the finest of pre-war Italian road-cum-racing cars”, thought to have been driven in the 1933 Mille Miglia round-Italy race by ‘Baconin’ Borzacchini.  It passed through several hands, including periods in Eritrea, East Africa and Bethesda, Maryland.  Surviving in derelict condition, without an engine, it was sold in 1975 to British marque enthusiast David Black who assembled an engine from spare parts and a correct specification base engine.  Following Mr Black’s death in 1990, his family preserved the car before putting it up for auction this past weekend.