The Grand Palais Sale is one of the Bonhams’s Blue Riband auctions and saw a 1929 Bugatti Type 35B sell for €1,610,000 yesterday.
Regarded by many as the most spectacular venue in which to conduct a motoring auction, crowds flocked to the Grand Palais in their hundreds to witness many bidding battles, including that for the Grand Prix Bugatti previously owned by Jack Lemon Burton and Lady Mary Grosvenor.
After a lengthy competition and applauded by the delighted audience, it eventually went to a buyer who travelled to Paris from the Far East.
This was followed by the 1968 Ferrari 275GTB/4 Berlinetta that went under the hammer, which achieved a new world auction record for the model when it was sold for an astonishing €2,225,000.
Another Ferrari – this time a Formula One Grand Prix single-seater – sold for €483,000. Previously raced by Michele Alboreto throughout the 1984 season, it is one of the last Ferrari Formula 1 cars that can be raced and maintained without official ‘Ferrari Clienti’ team support.
Demonstrating the popularity of the French marques, it took five minutes for a 1947 Delage D6 3-litre competition car to be sold for €1,100,000. One of just seven built, the beautifully restored racer went to a European buyer.
But the British Aston Martins also proved popular among bidders. Auctioneer James Knight presided over a mammoth battle between Europe and USA bidders as a rare left hand drive 1962 DB4 Vantage GT coupe went for more than double its estimate at €1,200,000. A 1965 Aston Martin DB5, of the same model as used in the James Bond film, Goldfinger, also sold for €776,000.
Other fought-over lots included a narrow body 1989 Porsche 911 Speedster and a barn find Facel Vega II coupe.
With just one owner and fewer than 650km on the clock the Porsche eventually sold for €310,500 against an estimate of €100,000 – 150,000, while the barn find that had been kept in storage for 40 years – and brought to Paris from the USA to be sold – went for an incredible €155,000.
