The most expensive British car in history sells for a whopping £17.5m
The most expensive British car in history, a 1956 Aston Martin DBR, has sold for record-breaking £17.5m
The classic car was originally the racing car driven by world famous race car driver, Sir Stirling Moss and it has been described as the "most important Aston Martin ever produced" .
The race car has become the most valuable British-made car ever when it sold for $22.5m (£17.5m) at the annual auction at Monterey Car Week last Friday.
The 1956 Aston Martin DBR1, is the automakers equivalent to the Ferrari 250 GTO and Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR.
Only five Aston Martin DBR1’s were built between 1956 and 1958. The one which was sold is chassis number one which was a purpose-built model developed by their racing design chief, Ted Cutting.
Originally it was designed to win at Le Mans but it failed to take the chequered flag in the 24-hour race, whereas a later model did go on to win the iconic endurance race.
This model was the first one built but it’s later counterpart won the 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car race in 1959 while this particular car won the Nurburgring 1000 kilometre race that same year.
It car was subsequently sold and converted and made legal for street back in 1962.
The DBR1's inline six-cylinder engine evolved from its debut in 1956 though its last race in 1959, ending up at 2,992cc and 268hp.
The original engine is included in the price of the car - but it currently has a modern engine with no historical value, so it can be raced without concern. This new engine raised the car's output to 301hp.
RM Sotheby's had valued the Aston Martin at more than £15 million but it eventually sold for £17.5 million.
The DBR1 joins a handful of other classic Aston vehicles, including a 1959 DB4GT, which sold for an impressive $6.765 million, and a 2006 DBR9, which went for a cool $616,000.
By the end of the night, RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale generated over $60 million in sales.
At a rival auction, the very same day at house Bonham's, a 1995 McLaren F1 - the first of its model to sell in the US - sold for $15.62m (£12.2m). The F1 was the most sophisticated car the world had ever seen, when it was launched in the early 1990s. It was also the fastest, with the F1 capable of a accelerating from 0-62mph in 3.2 seconds and hitting a top speed of 243mph.
With only 65 road cars eve built and this model, known as chassis 044, remains as original as the day it left the Woking factory in 1995.
Both the Aston Martin and the McLaren are owned by different people and had both been valued at around £15 million making them the two most valuable cars ever to be sold at auction.
Both cars broke the current record for most expensive British car, which currently stands at $21.7m for the 1956 Le Mans-winning Jaguar D-Type.
(As always, if you or a family member are considering buying a used car, don’t buy until you run a car check report with MyVehicle.ie where you will find out the true history of the vehicle.)
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Justin Kavanagh
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