The star car of the show gets the best spot in the limelight, right under the auctioneer’s podium. The catalogue dedicates four pages to it, resplendent in lemon rind yellow (‘Giallo Limone’, to be precise). It has had the famous owner, has been extensively featured in the contemporary motoring press, and has had a recent, comprehensive restoration. It is an Italian beauty with looks and power (350bhp from a V8 engine) rivalling Ferrari supercars of its era (the 1960s). 
The car is a very rare, RHD Iso Grifo, bought new by nine-time world race bike champion Mike Hailwood.

With racing looks and a fast owner, it looked right on the button at Ascot racecourse, where Coys held its Important Auction on May 14. Incidentally, another Iso Grifo in barn-find condition had sold a month earlier in the States for 60k euros.

Though the Iso Grifo sold under the hammer for ￡148,500 – a decent sum and within the estimate - it had been touted to exchange hands for a lot more: bidders’ yearning to own a piece of history is a mysterious and unpredictable measure of how exciting auctions can be, and this time it yielded a surprising bidding war for a 1971 Mercedes-Benz 280 SE 3.5 Cabrio. Admittedly, from the Pagoda-style headlights to the original Blaupunkt radio and immaculate interior, one of the rarest Mercedes ever made shouted expensive restoration, but perhaps even Coys’ auctioneer would not have expected it to go to a Channel Islands phone bidder for a new world-record ￡170k before premium.

Frazer Nash, recently in the news as the latest owner of Bristol Cars, featured at the auction in the form of an ex-London motor show 1952 Targa Florio. One of only ten cars thus bodied, and powered by the original 2.0 litre Bristol engine and gearbox, the sky-blue Targa Florio had been bought straight after the show by American millionaire Briggs Cunningham, whose team extensively campaigned it in the States. Back in the UK, it had been sold to the current owner twenty years ago by the very same Coys auctioneer who sold it again, this time for ￡200k plus buyer’s premium and including a very visible large ‘scar’ near the left headlight.

A smattering of lovely MGs, including a 1935 MG PB (sold at ￡25,500), a 1935 MG NA Magnette Special (sold at ￡44,000) and a Goodwood-ready 1948 MG TC, ex East Riding Constabulary Police car (gone at ￡22,500) were a reminder that British sportscars can be the stuff classic car collections are made of.

The star bargains of the auction must be two Ferraris: the ‘Cavallino Rampante’ four seater 1979 400GT Convertible was sold for ￡14k and, at the other end of the scale, a menacingly black 1971 365 GTB/4 Daytona, good for 170mph, went for ￡136k. Not a lot of money for the most charismatic V12 in racing history. 

Overall, Coys reports just below 70% sale rate, grossing around ￡1.4m and with more post-sale deals in the pipeline