A €5.2M LaFerrari, a Valkyrie With a Haircut, and Five Estimates You Shouldn’t Trust

The Market Brief · Monday, Oct. 26, 2026

Broad Arrow’s Zoute sale earned nearly half its money from seven cars under 25 years old. Bonhams, same weekend, same coast, sold a Miura to a room that wanted the old stuff. On Saturday, RM Sotheby’s puts five cars on a London stage and finds out which story the market actually believes.

The Number: €5,181,250

2015 Ferrari LaFerrari · Broad Arrow, The Zoute Concours Auction · Lot 193

That is the most money ever paid for a collector car at auction in Belgium, and it was the headline of a sale that grossed €34.6 million at a 91% sell-through. Registrations were up more than 44% on 2025, and more than a third of bidders were new to Broad Arrow, per the house.

Here is the part the press release buries. Of the sale’s top ten lots, seven were built after 2000: the LaFerrari, a Porsche 918 Spyder Weissach (€3,212,500), a Carrera GT (€2,762,500), a McLaren P1 (€1,890,625), a 812 Competizione (€1,496,875), a 599 GTO (€1,131,250) and a 488 Pista Piloti Ferrari (€838,750). Together they brought in about €16.5 million, 47.7% of the entire sale’s total from seven cars. That is what a market looks like when it has stopped debating whether modern halo cars are collectible and started arguing about how much.

It fits what Hagerty’s indexes showed on Friday, when supercars were up 14% and classic Ferraris were slipping (we covered it here). Zoute is the auction-room version of the same split.

Same Coast, Two Markets

Bonhams ran The Zoute Sale on Oct. 11 and posted €10.2 million. That is less than a third of Broad Arrow’s number, and the sell-through gap looks damning at first read: 76% (53 of 72) against 91%.

Our read: the gap is as much about consignment as demand. Bonhams’ Keller Brothers Collection, twelve mostly Italian cars offered without reserve, sold 12 for 12 and brought €3,593,750, an average of about €299,000 a car. Assuming those twelve were part of the 72-lot total, the other 60 lots sold at about 68%. Strip out the no-reserve cars and you are looking at a market that still wants a good story and a clear provenance, and punishes a middling car with a reserve on it. No-reserve cars tend to draw bidding for exactly that reason: everyone in the room knows they will sell.

Prices That Moved: Hershey’s 98% Sell-Through Is Doing Some Heavy Lifting

RM Sotheby’s Hershey sale on Oct. 8 moved 98% of 168 lots. Read in isolation, that is a triumph. Read next to how those cars sold against their estimates, it is a different story.

Nearly half the field sold under its low estimate and almost none went unsold. The only way both are true is that reserves were set well below the printed estimates. In other words, the catalog was written for a market that did not show up, and the consignors blinked. The top lot, a 1934 Duesenberg Model J Convertible Berline by Murphy, was a case study: £774,349 as tallied by The Classic Valuer (which converts to pounds), roughly 14% under the top of its range. The rest of the top ten was a pre-war and 1950s American luxury roll call (Eldorado Broughams, a Buick Limited, a Chrysler Town and Country, a Cord 812). It echoes the 1950s American softness in Hagerty’s indexes on Friday.

Also moving: at Fall Carlisle, Mopar did the heavy lifting. A 1970 Plymouth Superbird led at $275,400, followed by a 1970 Cuda at $159,300, a 1969 Camaro at $140,400 and a 1963 Split-Window Corvette at $102,000. The report didn’t give a sale total or sell-through, so we’re not going to guess at the health of the sale. We will note that the Superbird out-earned the Split-Window by 2.7 times.

Crossing the Block: Five Cars at RM London, Oct. 31

The Peninsula London · Estimates in pounds. Euro conversions at about €1.19 to £1, the rate implied by The Classic Valuer’s own listings. Rates move; check before you bid.

Verdict: full price for a one-off

1993 Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.8 (964)

Estimate £800,000–1,000,000 (≈ €0.95–1.19M) · Lot 137

Photo: RM Sotheby’s.

The car: one of 55 built. Delivered new to Spain, kept by a single owner since 1993 and used sparingly (around 10,210 on the odometer; the listing is inconsistent on miles versus kilometres). Believed to be the only 3.8 RS finished in Zermatt Silver Metallic paint-to-sample. Matching-numbers engine and gearbox. The listing says it needs recommissioning.

The benchmark: The Classic Valuer’s tracked median for 964 RS prices since 2020 is £797,087, so the estimate midpoint (£900,000) asks for roughly 13% over the median. That median blends in lesser RS cars, which flatters the premium, so treat it as a ceiling on the discount rather than a precise one.

Our read: you are paying for rarity inside rarity, and the colour is the argument. A one-of-one paint on a one-of-55 car is the sort of thing that either gets a collector to stretch or gets ignored. Budget for the recommissioning. And watch Munich: RM has a second 3.8 RS (a single-owner German car, Speed Yellow) on Nov. 20 at €1.1–1.3M, with far more use on the odometer (the listing says 185,440 but doesn’t make the unit clear). Two of 55 on the market inside three weeks is 3.6% of all production. Whichever sells second will be measured against the first.

Verdict: the cheap one

1964 Ferrari 250 GT/L Berlinetta Lusso

Estimate £750,000–950,000 (≈ €0.89–1.13M) · Lot 127

Photo: RM Sotheby’s.

The car: chassis 5711 GT, the 316th of 350 Lussos and the 19th of 23 right-hand-drive cars. Rosso Cina over white leather, a combination the listing says is unique among Lussos. UK-delivered new, restored in 1987–88, and certified by Ferrari Classiche in 2026 with its original chassis, engine, gearbox and rear differential.

The benchmark: a 1964 Lusso made €1,075,000 at Broad Arrow Zoute this month. The Classic Valuer’s tracked range since 2020 runs £727,694 to £2,448,600, with a median of £1,186,250. This estimate sits below that median at both ends.

Our read: the only car on the list priced under its own history. The reasons are visible: right-hand drive, which typically costs a Ferrari money, and a restoration that is nearly 40 years old. Against that, you get fresh Classiche certification, the original major components and a trim combination nobody else has. If one of these five beats its estimate on Saturday, this is the one we’d pick.

Estimates, provenance and condition are as published by RM Sotheby’s and reported by L’Espresso (F40, Valkyrie, 300 SL) and The Classic Valuer (RS 3.8, Lusso). Our reads are opinion, not appraisal or investment advice. Inspect before you bid.

The Deep Dive: Read the Estimate Like an Ad

An auction estimate is the one number in this hobby that is written by someone with a financial interest in your reaction to it. It isn’t a forecast. It is a pitch to the consignor, a hook for the bidder and a ceiling on the house’s embarrassment, all at once. This week’s data shows three different ways it fails the bidder.

It can be too high for the room. Hershey is the case: 48% of lots under the low estimate, 98% sold. If a house prints a number that half the field misses, and still sells almost everything, the estimate wasn’t describing the market. It was describing the consignor’s hope. Reserves, which do the real price-setting, must have been well below the printed numbers.

It can move between sales without the car changing. The Valkyrie is the case: the same house, the same stage, twelve months apart, and the ask falls. The estimate is telling you the house’s belief about the market changed. Read it as a data point on the market, not as a statement on the car.

It can ignore its own comps. The 300 SL and the Lusso are the case. The Roadster’s estimate sits above two sales from the past fortnight. The Lusso’s sits below its own long-run median. Both could be right (spec, condition and colour matter) but they can’t both be pricing the same market.

So here is how we’d use them. Take the low estimate as the house’s opening bid, not the market’s. Take the last two comparable sales as the real floor. And remember that on a no-reserve lot, the estimate is advertising copy for a price nobody has agreed to yet.

One Thing Worth Watching

Whether Zoute’s hypercar bid travels. Belgium paid up for a LaFerrari, a 918 and a Carrera GT. Saturday’s London sale is the first big test since, with a Valkyrie and an F40 meeting the same appetite in front of a different room, and an estimate on the Valkyrie that has already been cut. If both land in range, the Zoute story is the market. If the Valkyrie slips under, it was a Belgian weekend.