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The top lot in Bonhams’ annual Motoring Sale at Olympia last night sold for an exceptional £1,156,500, prompting a round of applause from the packed saleroom. The highly successful £3.2-million sale attracted international interest and saw an incredible 90% of the vehicles sell. High points were:

1929 Mercedes-Benz 38/250-hp SS Cabriolet by Castagna which sold for £1,156,500 The Earl Mountbatten of Burma’s 1929/30 Rolls-Royce Phantom II which sold for £79,700. The Patrick Collection of vehicles from 1905 to 1995 was 100% sold, realising £565,000

Tim Scofield, Head of Bonhams’ Motor Car Department commented after the sale: “Bonhams has had incredible success this year with its motoring sales and this has been a great way to round off the UK sales calendar.”

The 1929 Mercedes-Benz SS Roadster-Cabriolet, ordered new by ‘Roxy’ Rothafel, the genius behind the New York dance troupe ‘The Rockettes’ and the Radio City Music Hall, sold to an overseas collector for £1,156,500.

Bonhams is the only auction house to have achieved a seven-figure sum for a car in the UK this year and it has done so twice. Just three months ago it sold another pre-war Mercedes-Benz for a staggering £4.18-million, ranking it the world’s second highest price paid for a car at auction.

The renowned Patrick Collection attracted an extraordinary amount of interest with all 45 vehicles selling, many achieving well above their pre-sale estimates. Buyers in the room battled with multiple telephone bidders for cars as diverse as a 1982 De Lorean 2.9-litre DMC 12 (£21,275) and a 1981 Daimler Double-Six PMG Rapport Forte Estate (£8,970) to a 1905 Mass 8hp Two Seater (£10,350). Other cars in this collection included the 1987 Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato Coupe (£77,400), the ex- Stig Blomquist/Malcolm Wilson 1982 Audi Quattro Group B Rally Car, which sold for £58,700 - double its estimate - and a 1970 6.3-litre Jensen FF Mark III Coupe (£25,025).

Alexander Patrick, Chairman of the Trustees of the Patrick Foundation said: “I am absolutely delighted with the tremendous success of the sale. It was fantastic to see so many people who showed a real interest in the full range of vehicles in the Collection. The proceeds from the sale will ensure that the educational objectives of the Patrick Foundation can be maintained and expanded, whilst retaining a representative vehicle collection.”

Elsewhere in the sale, the 1929 Rolls-Royce Phantom II 40/50hp Sedanca de Ville, ordered new by the Earl Mountbatten of Burma sold for £69,700. Lord Mountbatten used the car, which still carries his personalised number plate ‘LM 3698’, to be driven from his home in Hampshire to London and back for seven years.

The early ‘snowmobile’, a circa1900 de Dion-engined Two-Seater, which baffled the experts, sold for £23,000. This stoic two-seater was thought to have been used on polar expeditions in 1908 but was later stored for years in an Italian nobleman’s property. It will now continue its life in a European museum.

Other highlights of the sale included:
1988 Porsche 959 Coupe, 9,270 miles from new (£139,000)
A wonderful horse-drawn hearse, hidden from view for over 40 years in a barn in Czechoslovakia (£11,500)
1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom I 40/50hp Fully Convertible Cabriolet (£95,000)
1935/8 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300B Torpedino Brescia (£95,000)

For more details visit the Bonhams web site.