Valuable scrap and more
12/26/2024
The end of the year is approaching, time for a personal review. With my classic car glasses on, the old year will certainly be remembered for the auction of the "Rudi Klein junkyard " in Los Angeles. It was hard to believe how much collectors paid for rudimentary car skeletons. And even the 300 SL with aluminum bodywork from 1956, which was already quite highly valued, changed hands for EUR 8.7 million, significantly more expensive than expected.
The soaring price of a car that could be bought new for EUR 645,000 or CHF 950,000 at the beginning of the noughties was probably somewhat less conspicuous. If you look at the 30 most expensive cars sold at auction in 2024 , you will find three Ferrari Enzos! This makes the mid-engined sports car, which was built 395 times, the most represented car in this club of really expensive vehicles alongside the Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider.
And if you analyze the results of the Ferrari Enzo at auction over the last twelve years, you can quickly see that there is probably no end in sight to the steadily rising price trend. Why is the Ferrari Enzo in particular such a high-flyer? Perhaps it simply has everything that a whole generation of (rich) collectors are looking for, namely coolness, design, sound, performance, rarity and just enough analog driving feeling ...
Back to the more personal memories, which of course include the many hours spent behind a wide variety of steering wheels. Although the supercars and hypercars are missing here, the Fiat 131 Abarth Rally is etched in my memory. The Porsche 997.1 Turbo also left a lasting impression, as did the Fiat Multipla , albeit for completely different reasons.
And the fact that I was allowed to drive one of the now rare Autobianchi Primula cars is something I won't forget in a hurry.
However, my personal "bucket list" of cars that I would like to experience for myself was only slightly shorter in 2024, so perhaps I will have some catching up to do in 2025. In 2024, I didn't drive a Ferrari 330 GTC, an Audi (80) Coupé, a BMW M1, a Ford GT40 or an MG J2/J3. I was also denied the steering wheel of a Porsche Carrera GT or an Aston Martin DB4/5 in the past year. And even less expensive rarities such as the first-generation VW Scirocco GTI/GLI, the Austin Maxi or the Renault Avantime had to be postponed (again) to the future, which of course applies to an almost infinitely long list of other interesting cars anyway.
At least we were able to expand the Zwischengas editorial team a little in 2024, so perhaps there will be more opportunities to experience and drive unusual vehicles in the new year. In any case, I'm really looking forward to it, even if it means that my own cars will get fewer kilometers under their wheels than they should.
New year, new luck. In any case, we won't be short of ideas in 2025 ...
