It’s hard to believe the 2024 Amelia Island Auctions are less than 2 weeks away! Over 300 cars from three different auction houses will cross the block from February 29th to March 1st. Lots from Broad Arrow Auctions, Bonhams, and Gooding & Company comprise the bulk of vehicles on offer.

As mentioned previously in our Amelia Island Concours Visit Guide, RM Sotheby’s is absent this year after Hagerty’s purchase of the concours back in 2021. Even without RM Sotheby’s attendance, interesting German cars and Porsches abound, but it does seem like this year’s Amelia Island Auctions are missing some of the sparkling lots from prior events. 

As we swing into Spring, will prices perk up along with the flowers? We’ve chosen a selection of cars that we think could be barometers for sales in the coming months.

Our choices, in chronological order… 

As desirable to Volkswagen collectors as they are to Corvette owners, the ancient split window design graced the rear of the earliest Beetles. “Zwitter,” or “hermaphrodite” in German, is a somewhat inelegant nickname for the rare Beetle variant produced from 1952 to 1953, which combined the dash layout of the newer oval window Beetles with the split window of the earlier cars.

A rare car indeed, this example was last sold by RM Sotheby’s in 2018 before the run-up in prices due to Covid. With a number of Zwitters not meeting their reserves recently, the estimate from Broad Arrow Auctions feels high to us. It’s definitely one to keep an eye on, especially at no reserve! 

Broad Arrow Auctions (Hagerty insurance’s new auction house composed of a lot of ex-RM Sotheby’s specialists) is really bringing out the interesting cars for Amelia Island. Perhaps one of the only classic German cars that is more desirable than a Mercedes 300SL Gullwing, only 252 BMW 507s were built from 1956-1959. Elvis Presley famously drove one, and this car also has a music connection with jazz musician Pete Fountain having owned it in the past. While rock and roll will always be superior to jazz, we wouldn’t mind taking this one home. Guided a little high to us, this would be a right-sized buy at $2 million.

Why are we featuring a plain-jane “normal” Porsche 356A in boring Ivory paint? Well, Gooding & Company has guided this car at $250,000-$325,000 and that raised our eyebrows, as concours condition ‘58 A coupes struggle to reach $200,000. What is the reason for this high estimate? This car is in original and completely unrestored condition, per the catalog. Modern collectors say originality is paramount so it will be interesting to see if that plays out in bidding. We look forward to inspecting it a Porsche 356 this original ourselves in a couple of weeks. 

Here’s one for the Rennsport crowd: a Le Mans-raced Porsche 718 RSK. The competition history of this beautiful 50s Porsche race car is extensive, with owner histories that include Ed Hugus and Don Ives. This particular car has been at auction before, with a reserve-not-met result at Gooding and Company’s Monterey auction in 2022. It was bid to $3.9 million then. We can guess the reserve is around the $3.5 million mark this time around, so maybe this beauty will finally find a new home.

Lancia is one of our absolute favorite non-German marques. It’s probably because Lancia engineers imbue their cars with an engineering excellence that easily matches those from the Teutons. In motorsport, Lancias dominated the best the Germans could muster on numerous occasions. This Lancia 037 is a road-going homologation version of the iconic rally car and apparently has had a complete restoration. Unsold by Broad Arrow in Monterey last year, it returns to Amelia Island with a reasonable estimate.

Lot 220 at Broad Arrow is a Porsche 959, a rare and desirable Porsche by any measure. But this particular car is one of the few to have been given the “Reimagined by Canepa” treatment. Kind of like Singer Porsches for 959s, Canepa’s reimagined 959s are complete rebuilds to a customer spec. The modifications go deeper than cosmetics, with the already potent flat-six of the 959 now putting out 800+ horsepower thanks to Canepa’s drivetrain enhancements. It’s one thing for Singer to reimagine a busted 964, but we question the long-term wisdom of restomodding incredibly iconic and rare cars like the 959. Asking more than a million dollars over a concours 959, we’ll see if bidders disagree.

Why aren’t we talking about the two Mercedes 190E 2.6-16v EVO IIs that are up for auction at Amelia this year? Because we’re going to cover them in a later feature this week! In the meantime, our new Mercedes obsession led us to this car. Finished in an eye-catching Anthracite Gray, this pre-merger 3.2 AMG 300E puts out one hell of a mean 80s vibe. Am I the only one who can see anime lines coming off this thing? Imported to the US from Japan and said to have had $10k in recent service, the car is estimated at $40-50,000. Based on comps, this feels high given the general appearance of the car and especially the rough engine bay. But if there are two in the room who really want it…

At Wolf and Mare we’re not just about the high-end of the market. Broad Arrow is auctioning a 1999 Porsche 911, one of the most affordable 911s, at no reserve at Amelia Island. 1999 is one of my favorite years, with the early fried-egg headlights from the GT1 looking oh-so-modern back in the day (the Turbo-look lights never looked right to me). This car is estimated at $55,000-65,000 which just seems very optimistic for a 996 with 64,000 miles and a worn interior. Ocean Blue Metallic is a gorgeous color and it is well-optioned, however. 

I try to shy a little away from featuring what I consider “generic” supercars. The Carrera GT is one of the most beautiful and sought-after Porsches in history, but to me the interior is starting to look quite dated and while the V10 powerplant sings, it just never spoke to me. That said, as one of the last analog supercars I certainly understand why Carrera GTs have doubled in value in just a few years. It will be interesting to see if the market has truly returned to “pre-pandemic” levels or if it’s just plateaued. If this sells anywhere in its current estimate range, we’ll have our answer.

Effectively a Porsche factory tribute to the legendary 935 race car, this 2019 935 is last in our list but certainly not least. It would be easy to dismiss this car as a 911 GT2 RS in fancy bodywork, but the work goes deeper than that. With 690 horsepower and a 0-60 time of 2.7 seconds, it’s got plenty of go for all the show. The long-tailed exterior is entirely composed of carbon fiber, in contrast to the steel body of the GT2. The 935 is essentially a non-homologated race car and is limited to the track only. Retailing for around $1 million and estimated here at $1.5-1.7 million, we think there’s a good chance this beast will be mostly unaffected by the softening of the market.

We’re looking forward to investigating some of these amazing cars in person at the Amelia Island Auctions in just over a week and will be sure to share our impressions from this year’s event with all of you. It will be very interesting to see how the softening market affects results in this year’s sales and the general mood among buyers and sellers.

Did we miss anything special from 2024’s Amelia Island catalogs? Let us know in the comments!

Wolf and Mare provides car finding, appraisal and listing services for sellers and buyers of collector European cars. If you’re interested in acquiring a special vehicle, give us a call or drop a line!