A Bugatti Set the Record in Zurich While the Newest Hypercars Went Unsold

A twelve-year-old Bugatti that left the factory for a buyer in the Middle East set a world auction record in Zurich on 26 September, selling for CHF4,505,000. In the same room, the two most valuable modern hypercars in the catalogue, a Pagani Huayra Roadster and a Mercedes-AMG One, found no buyer at the hammer.

RM Sotheby's Zurich sale grossed CHF16,302,075, according to the auction house's results release of 28 September. Magneto, which reported the sale lot by lot, counted 17 of 23 cars sold. It was a small auction, but it was a clean test of a claim made to every buyer of a limited-run car: that scarcity alone protects the money.

The record, and where the car came from

The record car was a 2014 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse 'Jean-Pierre Wimille', one of three built as the first instalment of the six-part Les Légendes de Bugatti series. It honours the driver who won Le Mans for Bugatti in 1937 and 1939.

The Gulf connection is direct. In December 2013 Bugatti announced that the third and last Wimille car had been sold to a customer in the Middle East, quoting a price of EUR 2.13 million net. According to the catalogue history reported by Magneto, the Zurich car was delivered new to its first owner in Dubai on 21 May 2014, later passed through German and Swiss ownership, and had covered 3,766 kilometres by sale day.

Estimated at CHF2.4 million to CHF2.8 million, it made CHF4,505,000, about 60 percent above the top of the estimate. Because the Swiss franc has traded above the euro since 2022, that price is also more than double the car's net list price in nominal terms, twelve years on.

The rest of the top five

The next four results were all cars whose production had ended long ago or whose specification was closed. A 1991 Ferrari F40 sold for CHF3,323,750, inside its CHF3.2 million to CHF3.5 million estimate despite 38,725 kilometres on the odometer. A 2023 Ferrari 812 Competizione A, one of 599 built, made CHF1,850,000. A 1969 Lamborghini Miura P400 S, once owned by former Formula 1 driver René Arnoux, brought CHF1,805,000. A 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Vantage, restored by Aston Martin Works at a cost Magneto put above GBP 400,000, sold for CHF1,040,000 against a CHF800,000 to CHF950,000 estimate.

The clearest outperformer below the top five was a 2018 Ferrari 488 Spider in a one-off 70th anniversary livery, which sold for CHF443,750 against an estimate of CHF280,000 to CHF310,000.

What did not sell

Magneto lists six unsold cars, and four of them were recent hypercars. The highest value was a 2020 Pagani Huayra Roadster, one of 100 built, estimated at CHF2.5 million to CHF3.0 million. It had one owner from new, 592 kilometres, and Pagani warranty cover running to March 2030. A 2024 Mercedes-AMG One with 507 kilometres, estimated at CHF2.3 million to CHF2.5 million, also failed at the hammer, as did a 2021 Ford GT Carbon Series and a 2016 Porsche 911 R.

One caveat on the AMG One. RM Sotheby's own lot page has since been marked sold, with no price shown, while the car does not appear in the published results. That pattern usually points to a deal agreed after the auction, at a figure nobody has disclosed.

A modern car that did sell, the 2022 Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, went below its estimate at CHF263,750.

Scarcity is not the same as demand

None of the unsold hypercars were common. What they lacked was distance. Each is recent enough that the buyer pool can still compare it with cars of the same model on dealer forecourts and in other sales, and the market already has a reference price.

For the AMG One that reference was set by RM Sotheby's itself. At its Monaco sale earlier this year, a 2024 example with 89 kilometres sold for EUR 2,817,500. A second car with more kilometres and a lower estimate offered a few months later is a test of how deep that market is, and on the day it did not clear.

Holding costs sharpen the point. Carscoops reported in May that an AMG One driven 115 miles received a dealer service invoice of EUR 37,610, most of it 80 hours of labour. A hypercar is a running cost long before it becomes a collectible.

The cars that did best had a different profile: production finished, a closed run, and a history that can no longer be repeated. That is the same split visible at Monterey Car Week in August, where the record total came from a narrow group of cars rather than from the category as a whole.

The lesson for a buyer who also owns a jet

The reader who asks whether a Veyron holds its money is often the same one who asks whether an aircraft does. The answer has the same shape. As AVNET reported in its analysis of business jet resale values, value holds where supply is fixed and demand outlasts the first wave of buyers, and it slides where the next owner can find an equivalent quickly.

Zurich showed that limited production on its own does not settle the question. The Veyron needed twelve years and a closed series to more than double. The newest hypercars in the room, with warranties still running, could not yet find a buyer at the price their owners wanted.