1914 Stutz Bearcat tops Broad Arrow's first Audrain auction at $1.875M

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Broad Arrow's first Newport sale totaled $8.3M, and a prewar American sports car beat the modern exotics.

Broad Arrow held its first auction at Audrain Motor Week in Newport, Rhode Island, and Hagerty's Rick Carey reports it was also the auction house's first sale anywhere in the Northeast. The results, published Oct 8, showed a market that rewarded quality but wasn't throwing money around.

The sale totaled $8.3 million, with 87.7% of lots sold. Hagerty says that rate got a big boost from 48 no-reserve cars among the 65 lots. Of the 17 cars with reserves, only eight met them. Seven-figure modern supercars were notably absent.

The top car was more than a century old: a 1914 Stutz 4E Bearcat Roadster that sold for $1,875,000 including fees. Hagerty describes an older restoration with dulling paint and worn upholstery, but an unbroken ownership history going back over 100 years. The catch is its price history. Hagerty says the same car sold for $715,000 at Pebble Beach in 2006 and for $2,920,000 in 2021, so this result is about a million dollars less than five years ago.

The other two seven-figure cars, a Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing and a 300SL Roadster, didn't meet reserve. Elsewhere, Hagerty highlights a 1970 Ferrari 246 Dino GT at $456,000, a 2009 Ferrari F430 Scuderia at $538,500 and a Plum Crazy 1970 Dodge Coronet R/T Hemi at $207,200. It also called a 1957 Oldsmobile Starfire 98 convertible at $44,800 a "great buy."

For collectors, the Bearcat's slide is the story. Hagerty's view is that the market for these early cars has turned, and the appreciation now comes from driving the car and sharing in its history, not from its value. Buyers looking for good cars at fair money may find more of them as prices cool.

Sources: Hagerty