The biggest sales from the £14m Goodwood Revival auction

A raft of classics changed hands at the UK’s biggest historic event

Celebrations of vintage motoring don’t get much better than the Goodwood Revival – an annual event that sees countless priceless classics tearing up the Tarmac of the Sussex circuit.

While this year’s event offered all the thrills and spills we’ve come to expect, though, it wasn’t just the racing action that was turning heads.

On a weekend that saw a field of machines worth £200m do battle in anger in the Kinrara Trophy on the track, Bonhams auction house hosted a sale that saw more millions change hands off it.

From pristine Shelby Cobras to rare Jaguar racers, Saturday’s Goodwood Revival sale had it all. Here are the 20 biggest lots that left the Revival with new owners.

1964 Shelby Cobra Competition

Sold for: £1.4m

We’ll start with the biggest sale of the weekend: a show-stopping, all-original Shelby machine that topped the lots with a hefty £1.4m price tag.

One of just 32 Cobras built for competition, chassis CSX 2430 was prepared in full racing spec for gentleman racer Tom Payne.

Campaigned extensively in period, the 289cu in machine was subsequently restored by specialist Bill Murray and displayed at the Shelby American Collection for the better part of 25 years.

1957 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Coupe

Sold for: £754,200

Switching from a US machine to a European classic, this fabulous 300SL coupe went for big money.

A late-’50s example of the German cruiser that was delivered new to the USA, the 300SL was famed for being the fastest production car of its era, carrying a fuel-injected 3-litre motor good for 215bhp and 140mph.

Highly original, matching numbers and subject to an older restoration, this particular example is reported to be a very drivable drop-top number.

1989 Aston Martin V8 Vantage X-Pack

Sold for: £345,000

Fittingly for a celebration of vintage motoring hosted in England, several Aston Martin machines went under the hammer at the Bonhams sale – including this late-’80s V8 Vantage.

Equipped with the desirable X-Pack option (which squeezed a formidable 432bhp from the 5.3-litre engine), this dashing dark-green example of the British-built muscle car went to auction in impeccable condition after a life of careful custodianship

1972 Ferrari Dino 246GT

Sold for: £442,750

There's a good chance this Dino’s new owner will get some satisfaction: Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones took delivery of the Ferrari-bred 246GT in ’72 and used it on the band’s frequent European tours.

Following Keef’s ownership, it entered a private collection in Japan before returning to Europe, where it was bought by Liam Howlett of The Prodigy at a Monaco auction and treated to an engine overhaul – so it would suffer no nervous breakdowns.

1973 Ferrari Dino 246GT Berlinetta

Sold for: £247,250

Prefer your Dinos without celebrity heritage? This low-mileage 1973 example of the game-changing machine has a mere 28,000 miles on the clock and was stabled with the same owner since 1975, until its sale at Goodwood.

Delivered new to the UK in right-hand drive guise, it went to auction complete with its original 2.4-litre V6 engine, good for 195bhp.

1956 Fiat-Bartoletti Tipo 642 Transporter

Sold for: £402,500

For those swept-up in the bidding at Goodwood, this mid-’50s race car transporter – formerly used by the Maserati works team – would have been a great bet for getting their new classics home.

The storied machine – capable of carrying three cars, seven crew and a bank of spares – reportedly transported Juan Manuel Fangio’s World Championship-winning car in ’57, did service for the British Ford GT team of Alan Mann racing and featured in Steve McQueen’s classic film Le Mans.

Later abandoned and left dilapidated, it was stunningly restored ahead of the 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

1961 Jaguar E-Type Series 1 3.8-litre Lightweight Replica Roadster

Sold for: £264,500

One of several racing machines offered at the Bonhams auction, this British racing green recreation of Jaguar’s rare and ultra-desirable Lightweight competition car (just 12 of which were created) was built by JD Classics.

It meets FIA competition specification and has raced at a host of historic events over the last several years – and will hopefully continue to do so with its new owner.

1962 Jaguar E-Type 3.8-litre Lightweight Recreation

Sold for: £235,750

Jaguars, it seems, are ripe for reincarnation: based on a 1962 E-type coupé, it took four years for specialist Lynx to craft this faithful recreation of the iconic Ligthweight (of which just 12 were built by the factory).

Equipped with a Crosthwaite & Gardiner alloy engine good for a reported 348bhp, the low-drag Jag goes to its new owner in fabulous condition, having covered less than 950 miles since its rebirth.

1968-69 Ford P68 F3L Group 6

Sold for: £511,750

Another American thoroughbred, this blisteringly quick late-’60s racer is one of three that competed in period for the Alan Mann Racing Team, bedecked in glorious red and gold livery.

Built absurdly low to the ground in the name of aerodynamics, the prototype Ford machine deployed a combination of advanced aerodynamics and a Formula 1-derived 3-litre V8 engine to deliver terrifying pace – enough to out-qualify a Ford GT40 at Spa by 4 seconds.

1934 Aston Martin 1.5-litre MkII

Sold for: £264,500

Back to Blighty and this second-generation short-chassis 1½-Litre machine was the earliest of several Aston Martin machines at the sale.

A matching-numbers example of the rare and attractive two-seater, it was stabled in Holland for the last couple of decades and enjoyed a full engine rebuild in 2012.

1948 Aston Martin 2-Litre Sports

Sold for: £345,000

Some 14 years later, Aston Martin launched its first post-war car, signalling the start of David Brown’s pivotal period at the helm of the iconic marque.

This 1948 example – chassis 7 of just 15 built – was first owned by Brown himself and used as an experimental car, eventually ending up in a private collection in Japan from which it was offered for sale at Goodwood.

1955 Aston Martin DB2/4

Sold for: £272,550

As if to continue that story, this DB2/4 from ’55 also went under the hammer – and it’s a fine illustration of the direction David Brown took the marque: its theoretical capacity of four people made it appealing to an untapped market of family buyers.

Wearing coachwork by Milliners of Birmingham, chassis LML/1047 is one of roughly 100 built in drophead coupé guise and sold with a comprehensive folio of documentation.

1960 Aston Martin DB4

Sold for: £563,500

And then we have the game-changer: wearing that now-ubiquitous grille, the Touring-bodied DB4 set the tone for Aston Martin machines for years to come when it launched in 1958.

This 1960 example has been converted to DB4GT specification (just 75 were originally built), with a mere 38 miles put on the 4.7-litre engine since the six-year conversion was completed by Chris Shenton Engineering. It’s reportedly even better than an original…

1933 Rolls-Royce 40/50hp Phantom II Continental Sedanca

Sold for: £345,000

A stunning ’30s speedster with quite the story, this Phantom II was delivered new to a Captain Thomas Lee Hardy, who tasked coachbuilder Barkers with clothing his new Continental.

Subsequently enjoyed by Vintage Sports-Car Club chairman Kenneth Neve, the stunning green machine has undergone various work since the turn of the millennium, totalling in excess of £200,000.

1937 Jaguar SS100 3.5-litre Roadster

Sold for: £631,000

Before Jaguar was a marque and ‘SS’ meant something else, SS Cars Limited launched the SS Jaguar 100: a high-performance sports car with a reported top speed of 100mph.

This example – chassis 39007 – is one of the earliest 3.5-litre models, built in December ’37. It was campaigned briefly in period, sold in ’65 in ‘barn find’ condition, kept by the same owner until 2007 and restored over the course of four years – all of which helped it sail past its £500,000 upper estimate at the Bonhams auction.

1924 Bugatti Type 30 Two-seat racer

Sold for: £540,500

Bugatti’s first production 8-cylinder machine, some 600 of the Type 30 were built between 1922 and 1926 – but fewer than 50 remain today, which makes this 1924 example rare indeed.

Chassis 4238 enjoys something of a patchy past: it was built to race and delivered new to Paris, before going off the record and turning up in the ’50s in a French junkyard.

In 1963 it was acquired by Pierre Deliere, owner of the Musée Automobile de Provence, who oversaw its restoration and remained the car’s custodian for some 50 years.

1995 Rolls-Royce Corniche IV Convertible

Sold for: £255,300

If the hand-built Corniche IV was the last word in cruising comfort, then this 1995 example must be the full-stop: it’s the last one ever built.

Kept by the factory after production ceased, it was offered at the Goodwood Revival sale by Bentley itself, with just 1161 miles on the clock and carrying a host of non-standard finishing touches – from silver inlay in the woodwork to a smattering of Rolls-Royce emblems.

1961 Bentley S2 Continental Sports Saloon

Sold for: £216,200

Buying a Bentley with a standard body in the middle of the 20th century simply wouldn’t do. After all, while the S2 carried a new 6.2-litre alloy engine, it looked almost identical to the S-Type before it.

Mercifully, it was possible to opt for the Continental: an exclusively coachbuilt machine – much like this 1961 number, one of just 71 right-hand drive examples clothed by H J Mulliner.

1971 Maserati Ghibli SS 4.9-litre Coupe

Sold for: £207,000

The Maserati Ghibli was the poster boy for Italian supercars at the turn of the ’70s, and it never came better than in 4.9-litre SS Spyder guise, which made it the fastest roadgoing Maserati of its era.

Just 125 were built and pristine examples today can fetch upwards of £650,000. Why did this one change hands for so much less? It actually started life as a coupé and had its top chopped in the ’70s.

All the same, it retains all of its original 4.9-litre power and a recent restoration means it should still go like the clappers.

1990 Jaguar XJR-11 Group C Prototype

Sold for: £1.2m

Last up is this stunning, race-winning Group C prototype worth more than a million pounds.

This XJR-11 – chassis 490, the last to be built – was raced by the team of Martin Brundle, Alain Ferté and Jan Lammers in the Group C World Championship in the early ’90s, claiming a win at Silverstone.

It went to auction fully restored and wearing its iconic Silk Cut livery.