And you think old cars are expensive?
In 2017, many classic and vintage cars were once again sold at auctions worldwide, sometimes at surprisingly high prices. The 20 most valuable cars traded between December 2016 and November 2017 alone achieved a combined price of EUR 146.4 million or CHF 163.9 million, i.e. around EUR 7.3 million or CHF 8.2 million was paid per car. That sounds expensive.
The 1956 Aston Martin DBR1, which RM/Sotheby's sold in Monterey on August 18/19, 2017, even fetched EUR 19.2 million or CHF 21.8 million. The one-off Dino 206 P Berlinetta Speciale by Pininfarina ( pictured above), the father of all Dino 206/246 GTs and sometimes even the Fiat Dino Spider, was considerably cheaper. EUR 4.4 million or CHF 4.65 was enough to buy the car from Artcurial in Paris. Of course, this is still a lot of money, after all it is "only" a car.
But if you look at the art market, the current high prices for classic cars no longer seem exaggerated. The painting "Salvator Mundi" by Leonardo da Vinci has just been sold for USD 450.3 million. For this sum, one could have acquired the 155 most expensive auction cars of 2017 combined, a certainly impressive collection with many desirable Porsches, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Bugattis, etc. And the Da Vinci is not an isolated case. A buyer paid USD 303 million for a de Kooning in 2015, adjusted for value, and USD 266 million for a Cezanne in 2011. You would have to scroll a long way down the eternal list of the most expensive works of art to reach the equivalent value of the Aston Martin DBR1.
Art is currently more in demand among investors than cars, and the growth rates for paintings are higher than for cars, at least in the recent past. But perhaps this is a good thing, because cars are meant to be driven and not to languish as investment objects.
