10 years later: more beautiful or richer?

Do you remember not so long ago when the Ten-Year Challenge was unleashed onto the world of social media? Everyone published photos of themselves from 10 years earlier alongside more recent ones, to show how much they’d changed.

To conclude 2021, I thought it would be interesting to launch a Ten-Year Challenge for auctions: how much did a certain model cost back then? We all know how the market went, but how many remember the main events (talking about auctions) from ten years ago?

More likely than not, that particular year will be remembered for a new world record – at the time – for any car sold at an auction; the title went to a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, sold for $16,390,000 (€14,550,500), but “rummaging” through all the auctions of that year, there were certain results that today seem like they were from another planet. Today, it’s hard to find a 250 Testa Rossa under $30 million (€26,635,000).

For example, in Arizona, the Ferrari F50 owned by Benny Caiola (of Pagani Huayra BC fame) with 5,000 miles on the clock changed hands just $814,000 (€722,700). In hindsight, I can tell you that that same F50 which, in the meantime, had only covered an additional 200 miles, was sold in January 2020 for $3,222,500 (€2,861,000), a figure that after almost two years we would define “decidedly soft” (they now go for slightly more than $4 million or €3.5 million).

Then, staying with Ferraris for a moment, from the same collection, I would have chosen – although that’s easy to say ten years later! – the F40 with 3,500 miles on the clock for $495,000 (€439,500). How much would that be worth today? At Pebble Beach, a 2,500-mile example was sold for $2,892,500 (€2,568,000). Considering that “mine” would have more mileage, do we still want to give it at least a couple of million? We would have quadrupled our investment. 

What if we were looking for a Porsche? We know they’ve gone up (but have also dropped a bit lately), but a Carrera GT with just 1,550 miles on the clock for $355,100 (€315,250) is one-third of today’s prices. 

But I would also be satisfied with a 911 2.7 Carrera RS Touring at $286,000 (€253,900), now worth two-and-a-half times as much, or a 911 3.3 Turbo from 1979 for $34,805 (€30,900), which now go for somewhere in the region of $80,000-€110,000 (€70,000-€100,000).

And then I would also like a 037 Rally for $249,500 (€221,573) – but estimated at $110,000-$170,000 (€100,000-€150,000), a third of the current $675,000 or €600,000 quotations, or a Lamborghini Countach Periscopio for $214,565 (€190,500). Today with the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the model, finding one under the million mark is nothing short of miraculous.

Are the changes all for the better? By no means in every case, but if you had chosen wisely this is the overall trend. Far better than a photo comparison ten years later!