Gooding & Company followed up its record-setting 2022 Amelia Island auction with yet another record in 2023, ringing up $72.7 million in its first-ever two-day auction in its 13 years at the venue. The numbers were healthy all around; 95 percent of the 155 lots offered were sold over the course of Thursday, March 2, and Friday, March 3, with 15 breaking the million-dollar mark.
Ringing the bell as top sale was a covered-headlamp 1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider, which sold for $18.045 million. That makes it the most valuable automobile ever sold at an Amelia auction and stands as the top sale at auction so far for 2023. For some perspective, the Ferrari’s hammer price, before fees, of $16.4 million was just about equal to the total sales of Gooding’s first Amelia auction in 2010.
Seven of the 10 top-selling cars wore the prancing horse, with sales totaling $34.77 million, accounting for 48 percent of the total. Among these were three $3-million-plus cars: a 1953 250 MM Spider, a 1990 F40, and a 1967 275 GTB/4. Rounding out the top 10 were a Duesenberg Model J Convertible Sedan, at $2.2 million; and two German blue-chippers: a 1958 BMW 507 Series II, at $1.82 million; and a 1962 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster, at $1.79 million.
Sale prices averaged just over $491,000; even without the California Spider figured in, they averaged over $370,000.
