Seeing Rouge: RM Sotheby’s 2024 Paris Auction
Chris Konstantinos | January 24, 2024

RM Sotheby’s is no stranger to splashy results. In the last five years alone, this high-end auction house has held twice the record for most expensive car ever sold at auction (‘62 Ferrari 250 GTO in 2018—an auction we happened to be in the room for—and again in 2022, with a ‘55 Mercedes-Benz 300SLR). Until just a few weeks ago, Sotheby’s also held the record—set in 2022—for the highest grossing auto auction ever. Vintage car enthusiasts approach a Sotheby’s auction with the same tingle of excitement children feel on Christmas Eve.
Having experienced French vintage car culture first hand last summer while bringing back a rare BMW E30 variant to the States, we wish we could be in person for RM Sotheby’s Paris auction this year. But we’ll give readers the next best thing: a first hand look into lots that caught our eye, as well as our predictions for their outcomes.

While not as epic in scope and scale as some of RM’s better-known auctions—Monterey during Pebble Beach Car Week, for instance—what RM Sotheby’s Paris auction lacks in volume it makes up for in panache. This year’s stunning setting in the Salles du Carrousel in Louvre Palace sets a fine backdrop from which to sift through some scrumptious iron.

When trying to analyze a car’s long-term appreciation potential, there are a few time-honored bullish indicators to look for…and the wild Alfa SZ checks most if not all of them.
Storied Marque? Check. Alfa needs no introduction. And legendary Milanese design house Zagato, while not the official designer, handled assembly for the SZ and were widely thought to have had a heavy hand in its design.
Rare? Check. Less than 1100 made over a 2-year production run.

Performance chops? Check. Lusty Busso V-6, manual, low drag coefficient and light weight made the SZ a spirited performer for its period, with suspension and brake components sourced from Alfa Course’s 75 Turbo Evoluzione program. A 6.4 second zero-to-60 time and 156 mph top speed were respectable numbers for the time against its Porsche and Lotus competitors…but the SZ’s sharp handling – pulling 1.1g on a skid pad – was what the car was most known for (other than its looks).
Distinctive? Double check. While not what most would call “beautiful,” the SZ is one of the most distinctive designs ever to emanate from Italy. No small feat indeed!

The Alfa SZ—nicknamed Il Mostro (the Monster) for its brutalist, hunchbacked, slab-sided looks—checks all the boxes. With a sonorous Alfa drivetrain bolted to insanely dramatic thermoplastic body panels, the SZ gives off similarly exotic 1980s vibes as a period Lamborghini, Maserati or Ferrari, but more practical, durable, and easier to drive…and often rarer.

With no reserve, ultra low miles and condition commensurate with little use, I expect this car to hammer above the high end of its €55-75K estimate. Also notable: this example comes with a full set of luggage, the only available option for the SZ and exceedingly rare.

Any self-respecting Porsche collector knows that there are a number of ‘blue-chip’ models that, while not unobtainium per se, will instantly legitimize your collection in the rarefied air of US and European concours culture. Think 356 Speedster, 550 Spyder, ‘73 Carrera RS, and (more recently) the 964 RS. Another that belongs on this list is the ‘67 911S soft-window Targa, the model we see here before us.

This is the car that started the ‘S’ craze in Stuttgart, and the ‘67 not only has the pedigree of being the first Porsche with the ’S’ designation, but also boasts the design purity of the earliest short-wheelbase 911s. These 65-67 cars are prized for their elegant chrome accents, slim bumpers and integrated turn signals, as well as chrome rimmed green gauges that harken back to their 356 ancestors. The short wheelbase ‘67 also has a well-deserved reputation as a bit of a ‘widowmaker’ due to its tricky handling at the limit for the uninitiated…a trait improved by a slight wheelbase lengthening for the ‘69 model year. This trait counterintuitively gives the higher-horsepower ‘67-68 911S a bit of the same swashbuckling “so fun it might kill you” cred enjoyed by the later 930 Turbo.

As if it couldn’t get any more desirable, the particular 911S featured in RM Sotheby’s Paris Auction is also a soft-window Targa (SWT), the rarest of the rare in ‘67 with less than 500 units made worldwide. Convertibles were thought of as endangered species in the 60s due to increasingly stringent safety regulation in the US, until Porsche engineers came up with the ingenious integrated ‘Targa’ roll bar concept, first featured in ‘67. The soft-window on this car was later replaced by a more practical glass rear window, but for hair-in-the-wind driving, nothing feels more like a true open top than the SWT. In this way, the ‘67 S SWT also can be seen as the baby brother of the open-topped 356 Speedster, as well as the older sibling of later performance-oriented 911 variants such as the 911 R, ST, RS, and ‘74 Carrera.

For ‘long-hood’ early 911 enthusiasts like me, an SWT ‘67 911S gets seriously close to ‘Holy Grail’ status. But what about this particular one? This car, a mostly California car until it was brought to Italy in the late 1990s for a now-aging marque specialist restoration , has a number of things going for it. Its repaint in factory-correct Polo Red appears to have been done to a high standard, and the car still has other important ‘67 only details, such as the one-year-only 14.5×5 inch S Fuchs wheels that heralded the beginning of a multi-decade iconic feature for the 911.
Polo red is a fairly common color, there are some incorrect details in the interior that give me pause, and the “Kunstharzlack” paint code badge appears to my eye to be a remanufactured one, suggesting this car may have required extensive refurbishment. But the car’s Cali bones suggest they at least started with a rust-free example. No pics of underside but exhaust appears in good shape. Engine looks clean enough to eat off of and is numbers-matching, though no such claim is made for the gearbox. Engine has been fitted with later Carrera-style oil-fed timing chain tensioners—non-original but a plus if you are planning on actually driving the car.

Seats are recovered in attractive pepita cloth, though the Certificate of Authenticity suggests original ones were leatherette only. Tool roll there, but not fully complete, and the frunk shows nicely tidy. Outside of the seats, interior in general exudes a slightly worn patina that suggests originality that is not necessarily a bad thing, unless you are trying to win a major concours.

Overall, the restoration looks to be of a relatively high quality but not concours standards overall, which probably places the condition of this car somewhere around a Hagerty ‘2’ and ‘3’. Various pricing guides place this condition in the range of $200-300K USD, but price guides are notoriously inaccurate for low volume, highly desirable cars at auction. All it takes is two wealthy people who really want a particular car for that range to get thrown out the window.
This will be a fascinating one to watch. Europe’s underperforming economy, and a general softening of early 911 prices since their big run up 5-7 years ago, may mean this car doesn’t find a new home. On the other hand, if you are in the market for a ‘67 soft-window Targa 911S, you only get so many bites at the apple. We predict this one will find a buyer somewhere in the middle to upper middle of its $200-240K USD range predicted.
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!