It appears that the collector car hobby has gone mad. I witnessed this with my very own eyes in Monterey this August, and the lunacy involves cars from nearly all parts of the globe. A Sunbeam Tiger Mk II sold for $231,000 and a Mercedes-Benz 190SL Roadster sold for $341,000. To my knowledge, the prices paid for these two were unprecedented and likely driven by the meteoric rise in the value of their automotive kinfolk, the Shelby Cobra and the Mercedes 300SL, respectively.
I can’t help wondering who bought the Benz and what they were thinking as they raised their paddle. Certainly a 190SL is lovely to behold, but it is in no way rare with 25,881 total units built, and its performance is anything but remarkable. It would seem that with Ferrari prices out of reach of most and with virtually everything else Italian hurling skyward in price, collectors are scrambling to buy whatever they can now, before prices double once again.
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