RM Miami Recap
RM Sotheby’s 2025 auction was held last weekend, and boy was it interesting. The auction featured 90 cars up on the block, with eight of them coming from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s museum.
If you hadn’t heard, the museum is selling off a portion of its collection, with the cars being sold not having connection to the Indianapolis 500 or IndyCar Racing in general. They are selling 11 total, with the goal of raising $100,000,000 in order to fund renovations, and by the looks of things, they’re going to succeed.
The top seller coming in at $13,205,000 was a 1966 Ford GT40 MKII, a car that has resided in the IMS museum since 1968 and with race history to back up its price.
Next up is a car I hadn’t even heard of prior to this, the 117 year old Mercedes ‘Brookland’ Semmering Rennwagen. Aside from being built just five years after the Wright Brothers flight, the thing that obviously sticks out is its powerplant: a 17.3 liter four cylinder. 17.3 liters is insane enough, but FOUR cylinders? What a bonkers configuration. I really want to hear it run!
Rounding out the top three, and the star of the auction for me, is this unbelievably cool 1957 Chevrolet Corvette SS Project XP-64. Hammering at about 10% over its high estimate of $7,000,000, it’s General Motors’ first purpose built racecar and looks about as 1950s American as it gets. It’s like a Jaguar D-Type powered by Coca-Cola. It’s advertised as being in running order, so hopefully it finds its way to a track near you.
And of course, we can’t forget the rocket-on-wheels 1965 Spirit of America I. This….car (?)….hit 600mph on the Bonneville salt flats in 1965. So, in less than one lifetime, we go from the aforementioned Mercedes Rennwagen to this. Madness.
What the future holds for this machine is anyone’s guess, but someone paid $1,3250,000 to give it new life, and I commend them for it.
Interestingly, the auction featured another group of cars unrelated to the IMS Museum collection. These come courtesy of Todd Blue’s LAPIS collection. Of course as you can expect given Todd’s last name and the fact it’s named “LAPIS Collection”, all are in some shade of blue.
Seven Porsches and two Mercedes were sold, and my highlight is the 2023 911 Sport Classic.
The Sport Classic itself was, well, an instant classic the moment it was launched. This one further benefits with a whopping $115,000 worth of custom “CXX” options including Paldao Wood inlays on the seatbacks, which are just…..chef’s kiss. Kudos to Mr. Blue for making an already amazing car even better.
Another standout is the 1 of 13 1994 968 Turbo S. This car is still searching for a buyer, even though it was bid up to $575,000. That price has got to be some kind of record for a front engine Porsche. If you’re looking for one of these, you still have an opportunity!
Rounding out the auction there was no lack of other amazing machines. Maranello was well represented, with a 1995 F50 selling for an apparent record breaking $5.5 million, and a 2003 Enzo is listed at “Price on Request”, so you know that will be cheap. An HGTE package equipped 599 went for $218,000, which given the other cars, makes it look like a bargain!
One final standout to me, was the 1987 BMW M3 Enhanced by Redux. With a claimed $567,000 invested, it hammered at $307,000. If you’ve never heard of this car, think of it like a Singer BMW M3: Redux took an existing E30 M3 and rebuilt it into something truly special. Cool car and concept. I hope to see more of their products appearing on auctions in the future.
All in all, the 2025 RM Sotheby’s appeared to be a great success. What was the highlight for you? Did the cars do well or do you think some were too high or too low?