The theory of supply and demand is Economics 101. A very basic principle that explains the less there is of something, the more people will be willing to pay for it. Think red diamonds, a bottle of 1787 Lafitte, The Mona Lisa. You get the idea. All these kinds of things are incredibly rare and therefore incredibly expensive. Something else that will become not only incredibly rare soon but extinct is the Australian car industry. So it follows that some already very rare Australian cars that that have already fetched some staggering auction prices will increase in value even more.
Counting down, the fifth most expensive car to be sold at auction in Australia isn’t actually Australian at all but a 1960 Volkswagen Kombi Samba Microbus, which sold for $202,000 last year, setting a world record for the price paid for a Kombi in the process.
One step off the podium in fourth and also selling last year at a charity auction was the very last Ford Falcon GT-F ever to be produced. With the ‘F’ in GT-F standing for ‘Final’, only 500 of these were made but there’s only one with a ‘GT-F (500)’ stamp on it and it went for $236,000. Probably a bargain when you consider the owner of ‘GT-F (001) was offered $500,000!
Third most expensive at auction is a vintage Aussie icon in the shape of a 1971 Falcon XY GTHO Phase lll. Sold in 2007 for $683,000, this classic was the record holder for the highest price paid for an Australian muscle car at the time. Not a bad profit when you consider these legends of the road originally sold for $5159.00
That record didn’t last long though because a few months later another Phase lll from the same year went for an even more astounding $750,000!
So that brings us to the most expensive car ever to be sold at auction in this country. This record has stood for some time and although it subsequently sold in 2010 for about a third of the record price it fetched in 2008, it still puts the $920,000 paid for the one and only 7.0-litre Holden Monaro HRT 427 as the title holder.
Now, $920,000 is a lot of money in anyone’s language, but globally it pales into insignificance for the price paid at auction in 2014 for a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. It went for an eye-watering US$38,115,000! A smidge over $51 Million Aussie dollars at today’s rate. Kind of makes the HRT 427 look like a steal!
