Collecting: At Auction, Masterpieces of the Drivable Kind

The sale, billed as the first high-end car auction in New York City in more than a decade, aims to raise the aesthetic regard for automotive design. The concept is not new — museum shows of automobiles presented as rolling artworks have proved immensely popular — but this auction, conceived to attract buyers of fine art, is set in the midst of the fevered art auction season.

The sale’s 32 cars and two motorcycles will be displayed in the same gallery space where a wealthy patron might otherwise inspect works by Warhol and Koons. 

The auction is set for Thursday at 2 p.m. at Sotheby’s on York Avenue at 72nd Street. The vehicles will be on view to the public in the 10th floor Manhattan galleries of Sotheby’s from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Wednesday.

The three-day presale preview will serve as an impromptu brief automotive art show of star cars.

“We applied the same criteria and principles that we use to evaluate works of art — line, proportion, design, originality and provenance — to these cars,” said Leslie Keno, Sotheby’s senior international specialist and a familiar face to fans of the “Antiques Roadshow” program on PBS. “That is why they belong in the space with the Picassos and Brancusis.”

Ian Kelleher, a car specialist at RM, said that the intention was to draw a wider set of art and design collectors. “We are looking at customers who appreciate the art of the automobile,” he said. The emphasis is on art more than automobile; the sale may test, as Mr. Kelleher said, “how much credibility is given to the car as an art form.”

The cars, while not in the same price class as the three-panel painting by Francis Bacon that brought $142 million this month at Christie’s, form a select group, topped by a red 1964 Ferrari 250 LM with an estimated sale price of $12 million to $15 million. Sotheby’s has displayed the Ferrari in its lobby to promote the sale.

“We see these cars as the perfect intersection between art and technology,” Mr. Keno said.

Most major auctions of automobiles are timed to coincide with important concours events, from Amelia Island in Florida to the Monterey Peninsula of California. But this sale comes during the main New York and London season of auctions for art, furniture and jewelry.

New York is one of the world’s centers for collector auctions of every category, but not automobiles.

“Sotheby’s once regularly held sales, many years ago,” Mr. Keno said. But RM cited a sale it held in 2000 at the Waldorf-Astoria as the last major auto auction in the city. The Louis Vuitton Classic, a concours at Rockefeller Center that sometimes coincided with auctions, was last scheduled for Sept. 21, 2001, but was canceled after 9/11.

Mr. Kelleher said each car was chosen for specific reasons — a landmark design that was emblematic of its period or a notably high-quality preservation or restoration. He said that he was able to obtain cars from owners willing to consign to an art sale, but not to a humble car sale.

The choice of vehicles offers what could serve as the teaching collection for a class on the history of auto design, a tasting menu or Whitman’s Sampler of the field. Together, they make a case for the value of the automobile as design and art.

“There is a great deal of interest critically among collectors of modernist art and design here,” said Benjamin Genocchio, editor in chief of Art + Auction magazine, which follows the art markets. He said he believed that many collectors were ready to add cars to their interests.

“This is the next step for those collectors,” he said. “There is a groundswell of interest in modern design. Many modern art collectors also collect modern design, especially midcentury modern furniture. All that started with cars. The shapes come from streamline and streamline comes from cars and trains.”

The historical span of the cars includes a 1912 Stutz Model A Bear Cat (estimated to bring $800,00 to $1.2 million) and a 1933 Murphy-bodied Duesenberg ($2 million to $2.5 million).

Italian coachwork from the 1950s is exemplified by a 1955 Maserati A6G/2000 Spyder from Zagato ($3.5 million to $4.5 million). A very different expression of automotive art is seen in the so-called Dick Flint roadster, a 1929 Ford Model A hot rod that graced the cover of Hot Rod magazine in 1952 ($700,000 to $900,000). Many of the cars are one of a kind, like the 1956 Aston Martin DB 2/4 MK II Supersonic ($1.8 million to $2.4 million).

Also unique is a wonderfully oddball design study from the mid-1950s, the 1955 Lincoln Indianapolis Exclusive Study ($2 million to $2.5 million). The little-seen Lincoln was created by Boano, an Italian coachbuilder, in an attempt to impress the Ford Motor Company for future commissions. Like the Supersonic, it incorporates jet imagery.

“That car exemplifies the era,” Mr. Kelleher said. “It is the keynote of the sale, a real showstopper.”

Others are highlights of their category, like the 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C by Figoni & Falaschi, a prototype of a star model of the romantic French streamline era ($8 million to $10 million).

More surprising lessons come from the inclusion of the 1964 Chevrolet CERV II, a testament to the beauty of innovative engineering. Created by Zora Arkus-Duntov, the pioneering Corvette engineer, as a Chevrolet Engineering research vehicle, the CERV II inspired future models. ($1.4 million to $1.8 million)

A 1967 Toyota 2000GT, which RM says is one of only 54 delivered in the United States, makes the point that Japanese autos have been more than just mass-production successes ($700,000 to $1 million).

The Jaguar E-Type, BMW 507 and Mercedes 300SL seem usual suspects from a Top 10 list, but Mr. Kelleher said he looked for superb examples and a New York connection of some sort: the 300SL, for instance, was sold at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Manhattan dealership of Max Hoffman. And a custom 1941 Cadillac limousine built for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor reflects how much time the former king spent in New York ($500,00 to $800,000). Its radio presets are tuned to local AM stations of the era.

The fate of the cars, some 18 of which have estimated selling prices of a million dollars or more, may be uncertain.

“Some of buyers will take up vintage racing,” Mr. Keno said. “Some will simply park the car.”