Collector Market Brief: Ruf’s Project Dragon and Two Zürich Rarities Test the Word ‘Rare’

Two stories this week arrive with a number that sounds like a benchmark and isn’t one. The Ruf Project Dragon auction at Gooding Christie’s Rétromobile New York opens at an estimate that sits $55,000 below the most expensive Ruf ever sold at auction, for a car completed in March 2024 and catalogued as a 1998. In Zürich, Broad Arrow’s second sale at the Dolder Grand lists a Monteverdi High Speed 375/4 and a De Tomaso Guarà as “one of 30” and “one of 21,” counts that turn out to be softer than they sound. Nothing here has sold yet, so every figure below is an estimate.

The Ruf Project Dragon Auction: A New Car Priced Against a Famous Old One

Gooding Christie’s will offer Project Dragon without reserve at Rétromobile New York on November 20–21 at the Javits Center, with an estimate of $6 million to $8 million, according to Carscoops and HiConsumption. As reported, Ruf kept one unused W09 body-in-white from the CTR2 era for nearly three decades. A Ruf collector proposed a purpose for it to Alois Ruf, and Tony Hatter, designer of the 993-generation 911, shaped the result.

The car is a reinterpretation of the CTR2 Sport with a bespoke twin-turbocharged, air-cooled 3.6-liter flat-six quoted at 621 horsepower. That is about 40 more than an original CTR2 Sport, which peaked at 580. It also has carbon-fiber bodywork, carbon-ceramic brakes, Bilstein PSS10 dampers and Dragon Fire Orange paint. It shows 759 miles, and it was finished in March 2024 yet is titled as a 1998 model.

The comparison everyone will reach for is the Ruf CTR Yellowbird, which sold for $6,055,000 at Gooding Christie’s Amelia Island sale in March 2025 and became the most expensive Ruf sold at auction. The Dragon’s low estimate is $55,000 under that figure, and its high estimate is $1.945 million over it. MCC has watched this corner of the market before, including a $1.9 million RUF SCR and a one-of-one RUF 928R estimated at $500,000.

Why the Yellowbird Is the Wrong Yardstick

A Yellowbird is a 1989 car with period history. The Dragon is a 2024 commission, and the question its sale will answer is whether bidders treat a new, factory-quality Ruf as the same asset as a period one. Three things deserve scrutiny. The unused-shell lineage is the seller’s and the auction house’s account, so a buyer should ask for Ruf’s own documentation of it. The 1998 title year will likely file the car among genuine 1998 Ruf data, which could distort future comparisons. And with no reserve, the hammer price becomes the first real data point for a modern Ruf one-off. One result will not make a segment, but it will be quoted as if it did.

Zürich’s Two Rarities and the Trouble With “One of”

Broad Arrow’s Zürich Auction takes place November 7 at the Dolder Grand in partnership with Auto Zürich, and the company’s October 21 release describes a catalogue of more than 80 cars. The inaugural Zürich sale totaled CHF 22 million with an 87% sell-through rate, per Broad Arrow. We have already looked at Nick Heidfeld’s BMW 3.0 CSL from this sale, so the two lots below are the ones that carry the most unusual questions.

1975 Monteverdi High Speed 375/4: Estimate CHF 185,000–230,000

Broad Arrow lists the car as one of 30 built, with a concours restoration completed between 2016 and 2020. Hagerty UK’s profile fills in the rest: Peter Monteverdi, Ferrari’s Swiss distributor, broke with Enzo Ferrari after being told to buy 100 cars up front. The 375 series takes its name from the 375 horsepower of its 7.0-liter Chrysler Hemi V8, and the 375/4 is a lengthened four-seat saloon about 5.3 meters long, with every example bodied by Fissore. Hagerty adds that production records are poor and estimates 28 to 35 cars built from 1971 to 1976.

For value context, the same Hagerty piece, published in June 2022, noted a 1974 car offered by Bonhams at CHF 80,000–140,000 that needed recommissioning, and cited Hagerty’s US valuation for a Condition 4 (fair) example at $73,000. Zürich’s estimate is higher, which is consistent with a restored car, but these are estimates from different years and different conditions, not results, and they do not show a direction.

The detail that matters for a buyer is how little data exists. With roughly 30 cars across 1971–76 and weak records, there is no real comparable set, and the restoration quality and documentation will do most of the pricing.

1996 De Tomaso Guarà Coupé: Estimate CHF 70,000–110,000

Broad Arrow calls this car one of 21 and the last model built under founder Alejandro de Tomaso. The Wikipedia entry for the Guarà puts total production at about 52, made up of roughly 38 coupés, 10 Barchettas and three or four Spyders. It also says the car used BMW’s 4.0-liter V8 from 1993 to 1998 and Ford’s 4.6-liter Modular V8 after that. The design grew out of the 1991 Maserati Barchetta Stradale prototype, which De Tomaso built himself after Fiat’s takeover of Maserati ended that plan.

The two tallies do not obviously agree. Wikipedia’s coupé count is well above 21, and neither source explains the gap. It may reflect a narrower definition, such as a particular engine or market, but that is a guess. A buyer should ask Broad Arrow exactly what the 21 counts before treating it as the car’s rarity.

What the Two Stories Share

A production count is a claim with a source, and a record is a result with a date. The Dragon borrows authority from a record set by a different kind of car. The Monteverdi and Guarà borrow it from “one of” figures that vary depending on who counts. In both cases the useful work for a collector is to identify what the comparison actually measures before deciding what the car is worth.

All prices above are pre-sale estimates. The press release’s lot heading lists the Guarà as 1966, but its body text says 1996, which fits a model that debuted in 1993. Sources: HiConsumption, Broad Arrow via GlobeNewswire, Hagerty UK and Wikipedia, linked above.