Bugatti Veyron breaks world record in Festival of Speed auction

2023 Mercedes-AMG One

Sold for £2,456,600 including premium

It’s not easy to develop a Formula 1 car for the road, as Mercedes-AMG found out the hard way during the lengthy development of the One. Nonetheless, it persisted with the plan to build a car that could both carry number plates and have the engine from an F1 car. Only 275 were built, and with the owners being collectors and current F1 drivers the chance to own one doesn’t come up very often. They had all sold before deliveries began and this one, despite being a couple of years old, is effectively a new car with just 100 miles on the clock. It sold for £2,456,600 including premium.

2007 Bugatti Veyron 16.4

Sold for £1,527,000 including premium

Sticking with rarefired hypercars, we have the Bugatti Veyron. Now in its second decade, the Veyron is arguably the founding father of the modern hypercar era. For more than a decade after the McLaren F1’s reign, many thought road cars had peaked in terms of performance until Ferdinand Piech thought differently. His technical tour de force was the answer. In many ways it’s diametrically opposed to the F1 in terms of engineering principles, but you can’t deny the effectiveness of its sledgehammer approach to the business of travelling very quickly. The Veyron had an estimate of £500,000 to £800,000 – so there was a palpable tension when it flew past that estimate and on to a sale price of £1,527,000 including premium.

1992 Mazda RX-7 FD Veilside Fortune Coupé

Sold for £911,000 including premium

You weren’t expecting a Mazda in this company were you? And you probably weren’t expecting an RX-7 to get so close to selling for seven figures. Neither were the auctioneers when the estimate of £250,000 to £350,000 was set. But never underestimate the value of fame, because this isn’t just any RX-7 that’s been treated to a glassfibre restyle. What this Veilside bodykitted RX-7 may lack in beauty when compared to a stock FD generation RX-7 it more than compensates for with star quality. It featured heavily in the 2006 film The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and was in its previous UK ownership since 2008. A three-way bidding war saw the car reach its sale price of £911,000 including premium.

1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster

Sold for £866,200 including premium

And now for something at the other end of the classic car spectrum. This beautiful matching numbers Mercedes-Benz 300 SL has been in the same ownership since 1995 and has had a 23-year restoration lavished upon it. It has some interesting history, too. Its first owner in the 1950s was the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana and the vendor bought the car from Le Mans winner Vern Schuppan who himself had sourced it from US aircraft collector Don Knapp as part of a deal that included two Supermarine Spitfires. That’s quite a logbook! Since completion of that lengthy restoration, the car has been little used. It sold for £866,200 including premium.

2022 Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series Project One Edition

Sold for £437,000 including premium

Rounding out the rather Mercedes-heavy top five results is this Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, finished in an F1-inspired colour scheme. Its aggressive styling – all vents and aero – couldn’t be more of a contrast to the elegant sophistication of the SL above. The aggressive look denotes Black Series treatment, while this one is more exclusive still being a Project One Edition which was only offered new to customers who had secured an allocation for a Mercedes-AMG One hypercars. Around 40 are believed to have been built, half of them coming to the UK. Its new owner bagged this 820-mile example for £437,000 including premium.

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Photography by Peter Summers.