The blocky luxury SUV soldiers into its 45th year It’s kind of funny how three vehicles that began as bare-bones military trucks, the Jeep, Land Rover, and Mercedes-Benz Geländewagen today remain in-demand everyday drivers. The Mercedes and Range Rover, of course, compete in luxury segments that belie their bootcamp roots. The latest generation of […]
While hurricane season is just starting, Lamborghini Huracán season is ending after 10 years. Lamborghini is sending the car out with a special track model, building just 10 examples. The Huracán’s plug-in hybrid replacement is likely to be much more powerful than the outgoing model. That’s just the start of the “electrifying” news sweeping through the upper part of the premium car segment. It looks like gas engines will stick around for a while, but there will be more plug-in hybrids coming, and, yes, even an all-electric Ferrari.
In the past, “bigger and heavier” would be a buzzkill for a sporting GT. But the 2024 Mercedes-AMG GT turns that axiom on its head. Based on the new-generation SL roadster, the AMG GT Coupe raises the luxury quotient over the first-gen GT while maintaining its hair-raising performance capability. The new GT adds standard all-wheel drive, a roomier cabin, and more chassis tech. With 469-hp GT55 and 577-hp GT63 models offered, ferocious performance is a given. The new model arrives by mid-year, starting around $136,000 and should make some competitors nervous.
If you missed your chance at last year’s Aston Martin Vantage F1 Edition, you can now get the best consolation prize ever. The 2025 Vantage is a major upgrade over the previous Vantage in every way while maintaining the striking design. The biggest news is under the hood, where a new version of the twin-turbo V8 gets a nearly 25-percent boost to 656 horsepower. The new interior shows a major leap in elegance over the previous car. You can also expect a leap in the price, which has not yet been announced.
Mercedes-Benz, through its Mercedes-AMG performance division, has launched a new AMG GT coupe, after discontinuing the successful original 2015-2023 model. The king of the hill in that original run was the AMG GT Black Series, a track machine with few peers. For those who put down a deposit for the hyper-limited $2.7 million AMG Project One hypercar, Mercedes also offered the opportunity to buy an AMG GT Black Series Project One Edition for nearly $400,000. Just 25 were believed sold in the U.S., and RM Sotheby’s Miami sale in March is offering one, with a pre-sale estimate of $550K-$700K.
January kicked off collector-car auction season with a big bang and big dollars. Following Mecum’s $275M haul in Kissimmee, Florida mid-month, the traditional Arizona auctions added about $245M more to the tally, with $200M of that from Barrett-Jackson’s no-reserve sale in Scottsdale. Bonhams, though, had the highest-priced auction sale in Arizona, with $5.175M buying a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ (as in 300+ mph test-track capability) for a car with just Bugatti’s test and delivery miles.
Will the new Mercedes-Benz CLE be the last of this German luxury car maker’s gas-fueled coupes and convertibles? Based on the new C-Class chassis, the new CLE essentially replaces the somewhat larger E-Class coupe and Cabriolet and offers the promise of more athleticism than those cars. The CLE will cover a wide gamut in price and performance, starting at $65,000 for the base CLE300 coupe 4MATIC and going well beyond that with optioned-up versions of the six-cylinder CLE450 Cabriolet. Future AMG versions are sure to offer more power and excitement, for more money, of course.
What does $400 million buy today? It was enough to take home about 1,200 of the world’s finest collector cars offered at the 2023 Monterey auctions held from August 17-19. That was down from $475M in 2022, and the sell-through rate was lower, too. Just the same, some stellar automobiles traded hands in Monterey at auctions held by Bonhams, Broad Arrow, Gooding & Company, Mecum, and RM Sotheby’s. The top sale was a 1967 Ferrari 412P racecar for $30.2M at Bonhams, while a 1957 Jaguar XKSS, one of just 16 made, was #2 at just over $13M.
What better prelude to the 72nd Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance® than to buy a car (or few cars) from the auctions held in conjunction with this pinnacle event? If you’re bidding or selling, the action is at the auctions, of course. We’ve assembled the auction itinerary here and selected some highlights from the Bonhams, Broad Arrow, Gooding & Company, Mecum, and RM Sotheby’s sales.
