London, 5 December 2015

The latest edition of the Classic Car Auction Yearbook, sponsored by Credit Suisse for the seventh successive year, covering the period 01 September 2014 to 31 August 2015 has recently been published. As with the 2013 – 2014 edition, the end of August cut-off date allows for the inclusion of all the major auctions in Monterey in August, as they are generally considered as the most indicative of recent market trends and prices.

As in previous years the authors are renowned classic car historians Adolfo Orsi and Raffaele Gazzi, who for the past 22 years (this is the 20th edition of what started as the Catalogo Bolaffi) have produced this voluminous tome on the car auction market worldwide, featuring all the major auction houses, which grows steadily in size year on year. Apart from a wealth of facts and figures, there are also market trend views from directors of four of the leading auction houses, Artcurial, Bonhams US, Gooding & Company and RM Sotheby’s.

The book is a large format (240mm x 315mm) hardback edition, printed on good quality gloss paper. This year’s edition features a “chrome” cover to accentuate the image of the “barn find” Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider, which was the year’s top auction sale, achieving €16.288 million at Artcurial’s Retromobile sale in Paris in February.

The 2014 - 2015 edition runs to 424 pages (up from 392 pages last year), and provides an alphabetical descriptive list of the cars offered at auction during the period that the book covers, with the sale price including buyer’s premium quoted in US Dollars, Pounds Sterling and Euros.

The book also features graphical analysis of trends, i.e. for specific manufacturing periods, or different marques, along with a plethora of other useful and fascinating information. There is a “Top 20” table from 01 August 1993 to 31 August 2015, where it is interesting to note, that the top 12 sales of the period, apart from a Mercedes-Benz W196R GP car at # 2, were Ferraris, headed by the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, chassis # 3851GT, which achieved a hammer price of US$38.115 million at the Bonhams auction in Monterey in August 2014. In fact, of the top twenty sales for that period 16 were Ferraris, 2 were Mercedes, with one each for Jaguar and McLaren. Of the top ten sales through the current year, seven were Ferraris, together with a McLaren F1 GT at # 5, a Jaguar C-Type at # 6 and a Porsche 956 at # 8.

The Yearbook is considered as “The Bible” by many associated with collecting, buying and selling classic cars, and even for the general enthusiast makes for compelling reading. It is available from major motoring booksellers, and the recommended selling price is a very reasonable 70.00 Euros.

ISBN number - 978-88-96232-07-1
If you have any difficulty locating a copy, then please contact Historica Selecta.

Keith Bluemel
12/2015


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