The 2025 Paris auctions: the Insider summary

The stands have been dismantled, hotels vacated and the 143,000 visitors who attended the world’s top indoor classic car gathering are now back at home, feet up or behind their desks, some a little poorer (or richer) but hopefully all pleased. The €34.88m Ferrari 250 LM deservedly dominated headlines, but what were the underlying trends?
 
If you take the battered but enviably historied Ferrari 250 LM out of the equation, ‘more of the same’. The year-on metrics were surprisingly similar. If anything, things have slipped a bit this year: more cars, but an increase of those bought under bottom estimate and fewer beating top. A jump from 49% catalogued at No Reserve last year to 60% this time round saved the day for many auction houses, particularly those offering older models from sectors unfancied in 2025: pre-war mid-level porridge and more pedestrian models of the 1950s and ’60s.
 
Away from the figures, here’s our take on the 2025 Rétromobile Week auctions.
 
* The star of the week. Opportunities to buy anything that won the greatest 24-hour race outright do not come along often. Add ‘Le Mans winner’ to any car’s CV and its value increases. The Ferrari badge and the 250 LM’s last-of the line credentials – the final Enzo-era model to win Le Mans, the last Ferrari sports-racer with vaguely road car capabilities – made RM’s offering on Wednesday evening truly special. It sold to a little-known European collector, at the right level given its condition (original, many period bodywork repairs notwithstanding), provenance (undisputed) and position in the Ferrari hierarchy (a bright star). Interestingly, bidders from Europe outnumbered those from America in both quantity and determination.
 
* Cars that got bidders fired up were usually… Porsche 911s from the 1970s to recent times, mummified hypercars at figures that allowed for additional tax and customs duties, entries from less-favoured sectors if at No Reserve, classic Lamborghinis, and ‘try find another’ cars such as Bonhams’ 5,600km black with green Alcantara Lancia Delta S4 Stradale.
 
* Cars that did not sell were usually… uninspiring pre-war machinery, anything priced as matching but with non-matching components (early Porsches come to mind), more ‘touring’ than ‘sporting’ GTs from the 1960s, over-valued modern hypercars liable to additional taxes and restricted to certain geographic markets, niche modern historic racing cars.
 
* Clever buys included… the re-bodied and re-engined but genuine Type 35 Bugatti at Bonhams, RM’s Preservation-Class winning Alfa Romeo 1900 Zagato and the well-restored, left-hand drive Bentley R Type Continental, and Artcurial’s modern rally-modified 275 GTB alloy (despite desperately deserving full restoration).
 
Away from the auctions down on the main ‘Rodeo Drive’ central walkway of Hall 1, the top dealers had brought their A game to Paris: lavish stands with hospitality, creative displays and world-class cars. The familiar tartan-adorned Fiskens stand agreed one $10+ million deal and reported ‘bites’ on good quality items in the $1-5m range, whilst Girardo also felt there was a “good vibe with lots of tyre-kickers but some serious buyers and one sale agreed in the double-digit €s.”
 
This is the only ‘fair’ that attracts American big-hitters, with a high-end modern and classic Ferrari dealer describing what he called ‘The Trump Bump’ in US dealmaking following the recent election.
 
Finally, Simon Kidston’s take: “The best Rétromobile we’ve experienced overall, and although not a dramatic turnaround from the sluggish market of recent times, a definite improvement if you have the right cars at the right prices.

“Anything ordinary or with major negatives has to be a bargain, anything unrepeatable sells accordingly, but deals are taking longer than before and owners and their agents are having to work hard and diplomatically to get something from being ‘agreed’ to actually ‘done’.”

You can download a list of all cars sold by Artcurial, Bonhams, and RM Sotheby’s sorted by make and model HERE.
 
2025 Artcurial, Bonhams and RM Sotheby’s Paris Auctions – combined results incl. RM Ferrari 250 LM (2024)
 
Gross: €102,999,170 (€65,399,926)
Number of cars not sold: 49 (63)
Number of cars withdrawn: 3 (5)
Total number of cars: 331 (297)
Number sold: 282 (234)
Percentage cars sold by number: 85% (79%)
Percentage by value average low/high estimate: 56% (44%)
Percentage of cars met or sold below low estimate: 60% (53%)
Percentage of cars sold below avge of estimates:  79% (76%)
Percentage of cars sold met/exceeded top estimate: 9% (14%)
Average price of cars sold: €311,176 (€220,202)
Average year of cars offered: 1968 (1973)
Percentage of cars offered at No Reserve: 60% (49%)
 
2025 Artcurial, Bonhams and RM Sotheby’s Paris Auctions – combined results excl. RM Ferrari 250 LM (2024)
 
Gross: €68,119,170 (€65,399,926)
Number of cars not sold: 49 (63)
Number of cars withdrawn: 3 (5)
Total number of cars: 330 (297)
Number sold: 281 (234)
Percentage cars sold by number: 85% (79%)
Percentage by value average low/high estimate: 44% (44%)
Number of cars met or sold below low estimate: 169 (123)
Percentage of cars met or sold below low estimate: 60% (53%)
Percentage of cars sold below avge of estimates:  79% (76%)
Percentage of cars sold met/exceeded top estimate: 9% (14%)
Average price of cars sold: €205,798 (€220,202)
Average year of cars offered: 1968 (1973)
Percentage of cars offered at No Reserve: 60% (49%)
 
2025 Artcurial, Bonhams and RM Sotheby’s Paris Auctions – Top 10 cars sold
 
1. RM 1964 Ferrari 250 LM €34,880,000
2. RM 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari €3,548,750
3. RM 2022 Pagani Huayra R €3,042,500
4. Bonhams 1950 Ferrari 166 MM Touring Barchetta €2,817,500
5. Artcurial 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB €2,248,000
6. Artcurial 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB Aluminium €2,108,000
7. Bonhams 1954-55 Ferrari Tipo 555 'Super Squalo' Formula 1 €1,983,750
8. RM 2011 Koenigsegg Agera €1,917,500
9. RM 1931 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 Gran Sport Spider Zagato €1,833,125
10. Artcurial 1930 Bugatti Type 51 Grand Prix €1,548,000
 
Top 10 values combined incl. RM Ferrari 250 LM: €55,927,125 (2024, €28,492,185; 2023, €29,487,075)
Top 10 values combined excl. RM Ferrari 250 LM: €22,539,125 (2024, €28,492,185; 2023, €29,487,075)
Average age of Top 10 cars sold: 1971 (2024, 1989; 2023, 1981)
 
RM Sotheby’s in Paris, 5-6 February 2025 – final results:
 
110 cars. €65,782,540 gross at 89% sold by number (2024, 73/€34,437,101/82%)
 
Bonhams in Paris, 7 February 2025 – final results:
 
96 cars. €17,016,550 gross at 92% sold by number (2024, 95/€15,119,625/85%)
 
Artcurial in Paris, 8-9 February 2025 – final results:
 
125 cars. €20,200,080 gross at 77% sold by number (2024, 129/€15,843,200/72%)
 
Photo by James Brown for K500