Just being in Monaco gets you in the mood for spending big money and, as luck would have it, just up the road from the circuit at this weekend’s Monaco Historic, Bonhams were holding their Monaco sale. Queue chequebooks flailing in the Riviera sun.
The £12.1million (€13.6M) sale was headed, appropriately and predictably, by Ayrton Senna’s 1993 Monaco-winning MP4/8 which sold for a heady £3.7million (€4.19m). Senna drove it to the last of his six Monaco wins 25 years ago, securing his position over and above the mighty Graham Hill as the Master of Monaco.
Other highlights of Bonhams’ Monaco sale include:
Senna’s first Monaco GP racer, the 1984 Toleman Hart TG184 with which he first locked horns with Prost, smashed its £662k-£880k (€750k-€1M) estimate, reaching an impressive £1.41million (€1.61m) hammer-drop figure.
This recently-unearthed barn-find Jag was perhaps the biggest surprise of the sale, with the Michelotti-bodied big cat destroying its conservative £44,000 (€50k) upper estimate with £322k (€365k) eventually being raised. All proceeds for that sale will be going to an animal welfare charity in Ghent.
Other Bonhams Monaco sale big-hitters:
1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster – €1,219,000
1931 Bentley 8-Litre Tourer – €741,667
1993 Bugatti EB110 GT – €602,750
1973 Porsche 911 2.7 Carrera RS Touring Sunroof Coupé – €575,000
1953 Alfa Romeo 1900 Corto Gara Stradale – €414,000
Monaco Historic
Monaco Historic 2018
Bonhams