GOODING & CO
WITH TWO RIVAL auction houses –RM Sotheby’s and Broad Arrow Auctions –holding event-headlining sales at exactly the same time, nobody was quite sure how the Amelia Island/ModaMiami results were going to pan out. As it happened, both posted pretty solid results: with a few post-sale deals for both, RM announced a $50m-plus total at its newly established event, while Broad Arrow’s larger catalogue raised a little over $63m. In fact, the combined $186.9m figure posted by all four auction houses toppled last year’s Amelia record $178m.
Despite RM and Broad Arrow going toe-to-toe, it was Gooding & Company’s slightly earlier auction that snatched the top spot, with total sales of $67.3m. Gooding also boasted the most valuable single car result of all the Florida sales, thanks to the incredibly special Mercedes-Simplex 60HP ‘Roi des Belges’ (pictured top). The fact that it was being offered publicly for the first time in its family’s 121-year ownership made its $12,105,000 sale all the more thrilling to the crowds.