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As the curtains separated, frantic car enthusiasts ran out their smartphones to capture the moment for posterity. Several of them applauded.
They had come to see lot 362, the much vaunted Porsche Type 64, a Nazi roadster that had been built by car manufacturer Ferdinand Porsche nine years before it was founded.
The bids for the avant-garde coupe, qualified by some "first" Porsche car collectors, were to open at $ 13 million at a RM Sotheby's auction on Saturday night. in Monterey, California. .
"When they talked about $ 30 million to start, I thought the starting price was pretty high," said David Lee, a Los Angeles area auto collector and business man. , during an interview Sunday. "The auctioneer had a British accent and did not really say the teenagers. Does he really say 30 or 13 years?
Displayed on a projection screen, the highest bid, $ 30 million, was increased to $ 40 million. It then reached $ 50 million and $ 60 million, before crescendo to $ 70 million. It would have been considerably higher than the record A 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO sold for $ 48.4 million last year at another Sotheby's auction.
Then the auctioneer suddenly stated that the highest bid was $ 17 million, not $ 70 million.
"Why would someone dump 10 million more dollars as if nothing had happened?" Said Mr Lee. "It's just amazing. He brought it back from 70 to 17 to save the situation.
What should have been the highlight of Monterey's Car Week has turned into chaos, as automobile enthusiasts gasp and moan at the auctioneer's fault. The Porsche, one of a kind, built for an unrealized road race on the new German motorway, through the Austrian Alps to Rome, was not sold.
"By the time auctions were opening on the Type 64, increments were being displayed on the screen, creating unfortunate confusion in the room," RM Sotheby's said in a statement released on Sunday. "We are proud to conduct our world class auctions with integrity and take our responsibility to our customers very seriously."
RM Sotheby's did not name the auctioneer. Friday night, a $ 19.8 million sale of a McLaren F1 LM-Specification went off without a hitch. The auction house, which made the news last year when The painting of the British street artist Banksy sold for $ 1.4 million, then self – destruct, seeks to stall any assumption that it would act in a publicity stunt.
"It was by no means a deliberate intention on the part of anyone at RM Sotheby's, it was an unfortunate misunderstanding amplified by the excitement in the room," said the auction house.
Although the classic roadster received a bid of $ 17 million, RM Sotheby's said it did not respect the "reserve", which is a minimum price set by the seller.
"It is difficult to put a price on such a unique and historically important artefact and, despite the interest of knowledgeable collectors, we have not managed to find a common ground between the seller and the buyer at night," said RM Sotheby's.
Only three of the Type 64s designed by Porsche were planned for production and there remains more than one. The modified, air-cooled four-cylinder engine develops about 32 horsepower and can reach a top speed of about 88 miles per hour.
The car was supposed to be part of a propaganda campaign marking the Nazi alliance of 1938 with Italy and the absorption of Austria. Porsche also designed the Hitler-commissioned KdF-Wagen as a popular car, which became famous after the war as the Volkswagen Beetle.
Chris Harris of the British "Top Gear" series loved the Porsche Type 64 in a recent test drive.
"It's like entering a safe somewhere in America," he said. "Someone finds an old safe in a building and you break it and you find a little book where it says:" This is the recipe for Coca-Cola. "That's what it's like in a car."
Lee said he had trouble understanding Sotheby's auctioneer all weekend.
"I have never seen anything like it," he said. "It's really an incredible situation that we attended."
RM Sotheby's was still advertising the car on its auction website. In early 2015, Sotheby's acquired a stake in RM Auctions, which specializes in vintage cars.
"We will continue to make every effort to sell the car," said the auction house, adding: "This is the genesis and antecedent of the historical evolution of Porsche that will follow and the most old car to be called Porsche, its design benchmarks continue to influence those of modern Porsche models. "
Mr. Lee did not come out of Monterey's auction empty-handed.
"I'm more of a Ferrari collector," said Lee, who announced the winning bid on a 1967 Ferrari 330 GTS auctioned by Gooding & Company.
He declined to say how much the winning bid was.
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