Who doesn’t love a fancy car auction? Sure, we may not be able to afford anything that crosses the block, but that doesn’t mean we can’t ooh and ahh over the sculpted sheet metal and classic car shapes. And what better than to gawk at photos of five beautiful cars, all headed to the RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction this August?
I’ll admit — I’m no expert in classic European sports cars. But I do know pretty cars, and I can tell you this one is gorgeous. This Maserati was purchased by Argentinian President Juan Perón, who had it modified by Zagato, but he never got the chance to pick it up. Instead, it sat around in Maserati’s back lot until it caught the eye of another politician — this time, an American.
I mean, come on. Look at that interior. Not only is it a vaguely purple suede, reminiscent of black cherry ice cream, but it has little accents that match the exterior color. Look at the strip across the dash! The door handles! The stitching on the suede-topped doors! Wait, suede-topped doors?
That’s right. Who needs windows when you could have interior upholstery that extends all the way to and over the top of the doors? Just don’t drive it in the rain. Or snow. Or pollen. Or harsh sun. Maybe just keep it inside, actually.
This Maserati far and away holds the record for ‘Most Expensive Car I Have Ever Sat In.’ While checking the background on these five cars to put together this slideshow, I discovered the estimated value on this car is between nine and eleven million dollars. My last car cost $8500. It was also a red convertible. What I’m saying is, how much more are you really getting for your money here?
Remember the good ol’ days, before such modern trivialities as “aerodynamics” or “downforce” reared their ugly heads on car design? Remember when top-tier sports cars just sat three full feet off the ground, allowing medium-sized landscaping features and children up to the age of eight to pass beneath without harm? Pepperidge Farms remembers, and so does this classic Ferrari.
This Ferrari also remembers analog gauges, gated manual shifters, and low, open cockpits. It remembers wheels that were wood formed into a circle, not buttons and displays all compressed into a tiny rectangle. It remembers a different era of motorsport altogether.
And this Ferrari remembers when paint was incredibly, unbelievably, unreasonably shiny. The lighting in the Sotheby’s building in Manhattan isn’t perfect for shooting highly reflective cars, particularly when you’re dodging other photographers and videographers all scrambling for the perfect shot. Add in the staff constantly whisking away each individual spec of dirt, and you come out with photos that take a lot of post-processing to make look good.
I just love the typeface in the gauges here. It’s almost western-styled in a way, like the numbers should be dotting the clock in an old-timey saloon. A bit of whimsy, from a brand not typically known for such frivolities — after all, who’s more serious about race-honed automotive perfection than Enzo?
Whenever you’re looking at antebellum cars that spent their war years in Europe, particularly when they’re vehicles of a certain caliber and cost, you start looking down the rabbit hole of their history to find out who may have found themselves behind the wheel. Luckily, this Talbot-Lago appears to have been French before the Vichy regime and only restored after the Berlin Wall fell — as far as I’m aware, no unscrupulous history here.
That lack of evil history means this Talbot-Lago can be enjoyed for what it is: A positively beautiful vehicle. I’m no scholar of prewar art deco motoring, but I’ve always adored the swooping curves that can only be found in vehicles of this ilk. La Voiture Noire, eat your heart out.