RM Auctions raked in an impressive £5.1m at last night's Salon Privé sale.
The Quintessentially English sale was a new sale fixture dedicated to English marques and comes just over a month after the Canadian sale house's successful inaugural Villa d'Este sale at lake Como.
Top seller out of the 44 of the 57 lots to sell was a 1929 Bentley Speed Six 'Le Mans-style' Tiourer which sold for £470,400 over the phone to a German buyer, who outbid interest from Canada.
Although the result was a £100k off the Cricklewood icon's top estimate, RM second best seller soared; a 1961 Aston Martin DB4 Convertible in desirable Vantage spec made £431,200. The result drew a round of applause from the room, with the audience holding its collective breath as the Aston shot £110,000 over RM's £250 - 320,000 prediction.
Also impressive was the £201,600 a phone buyer shelled out for the keys to a rare (one of 26 in right-hand drive 3.8-litre 'S' spec) and highly original 1959 Jaguar XK150S Roadster.
Interest in the sale's predicted star lot - the 1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 Experimental Sports Tourer 10EX - wasn't as buoyant: the £392,000 a phone buyer shelled out for the Barker-bodied sportster was just under the car's wide £400 - 800,000 prediction.
RM did better with other Crewe fare; a 1955 Bentley R-type Continental Fastback (estimate £325 - 425,000) entered by the trade sold for £358,400 while a 1962 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II Drophead Coupe made £268,800 against a £240 - 280,000 guide. Rival marque Aston Martin did well too after the DB4 Vantage result set the tone: a 1962 DB4 Series IV Vantage made £274,400 after a bidder in the room snatched it with a £5k bid increment over a final phone bid just seconds before the hammer came down.
RM wasn't as lucky with the pre-war Astons it had on offer: a 1937 15/98 Roadster stalled at £85,000 while the £285k final bid on its 1939 2-litre 'Brooklands' Speed Model went through after the sale for £319,200 - a smidgen under the factory-prepared racer's £320 - 380,000 estimate.
There was strong money chasing more regular classics with an utterly superb 1962 Triumph TR4 making £33,600 over the phone and a US-spec 1976 Jensen Interceptor MkIII Convertible selling for £47,600.
See: www.rmauctions.com for more.
