Auction PR Publicity Announcements News and Information
Auction PR Publicity Announcements News and Information

Bonhams New England Motorcar Auction

Rare and desirable motorcars and collectible examples of automobilia come to auction with Bonhams on Saturday, October 4, 2008, at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, MA. Bonhams has developed a loyal following for their annual motorcar auctions at the Auto Museum, now celebrating its seventh sale. Each event at the Brookline venue has featured remarkable examples of automotive styling and design, with world record prices established for important makes and models and property coming to auction from noted private and institutional collections.

“The Larz Anderson Auto Museum welcomes Bonhams each year for their much anticipated sale of motorcars, motorcycles and related automobilia,” Tyler Burns, the Museum’s assistant director, said. “We’re proud to offer the world’s oldest auto museum as a most fitting venue for an event of such global magnitude.”

The annual event, now titled “Vintage New England,” brings an international assemblage of collectors, enthusiasts and dealers together to view, inspect and bid on an exceptional selection of extraordinary motorcars — assembled under a great white tent on the grounds of the museum. This year the sale date was moved from its usual Spring timeframe to the Fall in order to better accommodate motoring enthusiasts’ calendars.

“Moving the Brookline sale to October 4 helps it sit more comfortably in motorcar clients’ schedules, when the focus between concours and auto events shifts from California to the East Coast and New England. The auction will follow hot on the heals of the Bonhams Paine Collection’s two-day sale at the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum, which takes place on the 26/27 September, and a week before the annual Hershey autojumble,” explains Rupert Banner, Bonhams Motoring Dept. Business Development Director.

Already consigned to this year’s auction is very rare example of Isotta Fraschini’s jewel-like model FE, a nimble sports car from 1908 of the Grand Prix des Voiturettes type.

In recent sales at Brookline, Bonhams has established world auction records for a 1911 Stanley Steamer 10hp Model 63 Toy Tonneau (sold for $181,900) and a 1923 Rolls-Royce Springfield Silver Ghost Piccadilly Roadster which set an auction record when sold for $342,500, to the sound of the auctioneer’s hammer followed by thunderous applause. Audience appreciation was clear in 2005 for the ex-Winthrop Rockefeller Tucker 48 (sold for $461,500) while a 1926 Bugatti type 39A Grand Prix racing car crossed the block at the Larz Anderson, selling for $1.2-million in 2007.

Additional sale information and illustrated catalogs will be available online in the coming months at: www.bonhams.com/motoring. Owners interested in consigning individual cars or entire collections to the Vintage New England, October 4, 2008 auction should contact the Bonhams Motoring Department specialists: Rupert Banner, Motoring Dept. Business Development Dir., New York, 212- 461-6515, and Mark Osborne, Motoring Department Director, San Francisco, 415-391-4000.