Analysis: RM Sotheby's London Auction
- Giles Gunning
- Nov 5, 2022
- 2 min read
RM Sotheby's London auction has come to a close. The marketing team was in overdrive: influencer marketing, high-production quality videos and a swanky preview evening. We were set for a firework night spectacular.
The fireworks display started with a bang but didn't fire on all cylinders, let's jump in.
Headlines
49 vehicles went under the hammer. 37 sold. Giving us a sell-through rate (STR) of 75%. That's above the average STR we've seen throughout 2022.
On the surface, a good result. However, dig deeper and a more intriguing picture reveals itself.
57% of the vehicles that went under the hammer didn't meet the lower estimate bound.
Note: this includes commission for vehicles that sold and excludes commission for the 12 vehicles that were not sold.
Despite the majority of vehicles not making their estimate a generous approach to reserves saw a lot of these vehicles 'sell' regardless.
14% of the vehicles that went under the hammer broke through the upper estimate bound.
Looking at the numbers another way if you picked a random car out of the auction, odds are that it would have sold for 2% above the lower estimate or 19% below the upper estimate.
5 Sales To Note
There were some stellar sales to be proud of, most notably the first vehicle under the hammer: the 1974 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow owned by Freddie Mercury from 1979 until his death. Estimate: £20,000 - £30,000. Sold (inc commission): £286,250. All proceeds from the auction went to charity which further propelled this sale to exceed its estimate by over 1000%.
Another strong result was the 2001 Rover Mini Cooper Sport 500, with only 6 miles on the clock. Estimate: £30,000 - £40,000. Sold (inc commission): £57,500 - 64% over the estimate.
If you're looking for a driver's car, the logical choice was the 2003 Ferrari Enzo, 71,000km on the clock and at the bargain basement price of £1,917,500. That makes it the second cheapest Enzo to sell publicly in the past 5 years.
The ex-Brunei 1997 Ferrari F50 didn't meet its reserve (estimate: £3,250,000 - £3,625,000) finishing at a high bid of £2,800,000. A shame, well, actually a remarkably strong result. If you add commission on top of the sale, it would have been the 4th most expensive F50 publicly sold in history.
And finally, the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 'Project' sold (inc commission) at £426,875. Having been off the road for near half a century a bit of love was needed to let the straight 6 sing once more. Given that the top sale of a base DB5 over the past few years has been £644k, the buyer has £220k to bring it back to concours condition. Can they do it?
Regardless, one thing was for sure coming away from the auction: the auctioneer can certainly put on a fireworks display full of exuberance.
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