1973 Porsche 911 964 Rsr Custom Modern on 2040-cars

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Historic race cars highlight the RM Sotheby's 2023 Le Mans sale

Auction house RM Sotheby's is celebrating 100 years of the 24 Hours of Le Mans by organizing a big sale on the day before the race. The cars scheduled to cross the auction block have all spent time on the track, and the catalog shows how racers have evolved since the 1930s. Browsing through RM's auction catalog is like taking a five-minute course in the history of racing. The oldest car is a 1932 Aston Martin Le Mans 'LM8' that's had a remarkable life. It was developed and built for competition and entered in the 1932 24 Hours of Le Mans by the Aston Martin factory team, where it finished seventh. It was ultimately sold to a private owner but it survived, which shouldn't be taken for granted: teams often destroyed obsolete race cars, and the list of special vehicles that didn't survive World War II is longer than you'd think. Paul Sykes bought the car in 1955 and used it as his daily driver. Imagine walking out of a shop in a British village in the 1960s and finding a 1932 race car parked next to your Mini. Sykes ultimately bought another daily driver, but he kept the Aston Martin for a total of 55 years. The second-oldest car is a 1936 Delahaye 135 S with a body by coach builder Pourtout. RM notes that this is one of the most significant pre-war competition Delahaye models and adds that it finished second in the 1938 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It continued racing until 1956 and then spent several decades hidden in storage. It was fully restored in 2005, and it's now eligible to compete in historic races such as the Mille Miglia and the Le Mans Classic. Restoring it was easier said than done: the car was rebodied twice before being tucked away. None of the cars crossing the block were built in the 1940s, so we skip ahead to the 1950s with a 1954 OSCA MT4 by Morelli. It's one of 72 built, according to RM, and only 19 of those were fitted with the twin-cam, 1.5-liter 2AD engine. It raced at Le Mans in 1954 but ended up disqualified following an accident. Another highlight from the 1950s is a 1958 Lister-Jaguar 'Knobbly' finished in yellow and green. We said that all of the cars crossing the block have spent time on the track, but that doesn't mean they were built to race. The 1963 Ferrari 250 GTE 2+2 Series III is a street-legal model, yet it's included in the auction because it was used as a safety car during the 1963 edition of the race.

Toyota tops Kelley Blue Book's Resale Value Awards

Kelley Blue Book announced its annual Best Resale Value Award winners, and we weren't too surprised to see the list dominated by Japanese automakers - mainly Toyota and Honda. KBB hands out the awards based on the projected residual value of mostly all 2013 model year vehicles, and Toyota skated home with a number of awards including 10 of the 22 overall categories and having five of its products in the top 10 for models with best resale value. KBB's Best Resale Value Awards were announced in the same week as the ALG Residual Value Awards, and there were many similarities between both lists, especially when it came to Toyota.
To come up with its winners, KBB measures depreciation over the first five years of ownership, and looks for the cars it expects to hold its value the best after this time; on average, the report says the 2013 model year vehicles will lose 61.8 percent of its value in five years. Of the 22 categories, 15 slots were filled by Toyota, Honda and Nissan products, while the Camaro and Porsche (Cayenne and Panamera) each took home a pair of awards. If Toyota has anything to be upset about in this list of cars, it's that categories for Hybrid/Alternative Energy Car and Electric Vehicle went to the Ford Fusion and Chevrolet Volt, respectively.
The overall top 10 models for the best resale value in 2013 are, in alphabetical order:

2014 Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid

Porsche's Performance Plug-in Preamble
By the end of this year, Porsche will be producing as many plug-in vehicles (two) as mainstream automakers such as Toyota, Chevrolet and Honda. Before the 2015 918 Spyder hybrid supercar goes on sale in the US, though, it will be warming its customers up to the idea of a plug-in model with the 2014 Panamera S E-Hybrid. A step up from the previous Panamera S Hybrid, the new plug-in Panamera adds a more powerful and advanced electric drive system that pledges to deliver the performance expected of a Porsche with the added benefit of improved fuel economy and reduced emissions.
Going on sale in November, the Panamera S E-Hybrid is aimed at customers also considering the upcoming plug-in version Mercedes-Benz S-Class, but the car's dimensions and performance could make it a competitor for Tesla Model S customers. We headed to Germany at Porsche's invitation to see how well it performs, as well as check out the full range of newly refreshed Panamera models, which now numbers nine offerings - although we're still waiting for a production version of the gorgeous Sport Turismo wagon concept.