· and the car thats considered by many enthusiasts to be the first true sports car is the 1914 vauxhall 25hp prince henry sports torpedo, which recently fetched more than $657,000 at auction. The european automotive press seems to have disregarded the american mercer 35r raceaboutas a sportscar, despite a string of major victories in american racing from 1911 onwards. The austro-daimler prinz heinrich was modeled on the car that finished 1-2-3 in the same 1910 trial in which the vauxhall competed, with the winning driver being a 34-year-old ferdinand porsche, who continues to influence sportscar design to this day. This is a list of the most expensive cars sold in public auto auctions through the traditional bidding process. The 1914 vauxhall 25 hp prince henry sports torpedo, often regarded as the worlds first true sports car, sold for £516,700 at a bonhams auction in london on december 4. In 1902, fiat introduced a racing car named the 24 hp corsa , which is arguably the first car ever to be specially designed for racing that was not derived from a series production automobile. As was the case when cars were still evolving from. In 1907, a kaiserpreis (emperor s prize) was held, with entries limited to touring carswith engines of less than eight liters. The corsa had a steel chassis, a 7,238 cc four-cylinder engine producing 40 hp and weighed 450 kg (992 lb). Prinz heinrich (pictured above in his benz) was the younger brother of german emperor wilhelm ii, and a passionate motorsport enthusiast who was the patron of one of the early reliability tours in germany. The vauxhall prince henry was named after three 20-hp a-type vauxhall cars that competed in the 1910 prinz heinrich fahrt, with the british vauxhall company anglicizing the name for its primary public. There can be little doubt from looking at the advertisements above from 1907 that the american apperson jack rabbit was a sportscar in every sense, with a guaranteed top speed of 75 mph (121 km/h) and the advertisement reading: It might look tiny in comparison to cars of today, but there was something very special about ettore bugatti s type 13, which began production in 1910 with a 1368 cc four-cylinder engine and four-valves per cylinder. The 35r raceabout sold for us$2,250 at that time, the price of a modest home, so it was not only very expensive, but a genuine production sportscar with a powerful 300 cub. In 1908, the prin. Just as the bmw isetta and messerschmitt would find reverse chic popularity in post-war europe, spindly little automobiles powered by motorcycle engines were enjoyed by high society on both sides of the atlantic during the. Cyclecars were, in many ways, the brass era version of microcars. The epic 1910 event covered 1,495 km (927 miles) from berlin to bad homburg (near frankfurt) and was both gruelling and had timed sections based on. [1] this list only consists of those sold for at least $4 million in auction sales during a traditional bidding process, inclusive of the mandatory buyers. See full list on newatlas. com The record is held by a 1955 mercedes-benz 300 slr uhlenhaut coupe sold in 2022 for €135 million to a private collector. · a veteran 102-year-old vauxhall regarded as the world ’s first sports car is expected to sell for more than £600 ,000 when it is sold for the first time in half a century. Sadly for the understandably nationalistic king, the french peugeot cars driven by the likes of jules goux and georges boillot won the first three runnings of the copa catalunya. Alfonso xiii, the king of spain, was an avid motoring enthusiast, and instituted the copa catalunya, a race for voiturettes, in 1908. Bugatti entered one of these cars in the french grand prix at le mans in 1911 with ernst frederich behind the wheel (below). In presenting the jack rabbit we are catering to that limited class of owners who want a car that can be put to any serv. · the world ’s first sports car and a 1926 rolls royce known as the “phantom of love” are just two of the 29 highlighted cars worth more than $500,000 that will be auctioned off. show more · the 1914 vauxhall 25 hp ‘prince henry’ sports torpedo, often regarded as the world’s first true sports car, sold for £516,700 ($657,185) at a bonhams auction in london on december 4. Hispano-suiza s chief designer marc b. From the auction description of the above 1914 gn cyclecar: Porsche had designed the cars and headed the works team that filled the top two tiers of the podiu.
