RM Auctions, which frequently gets the drop on choice car collections, is hosting yet another auction of cars that are old, rare or have illustrious connections.
Yes, this one's in Denmark, but if you can afford one of these cars, you can also afford airfare and shipping.
The well-known Aalholm Automobile Collection is being dismantled and sold off. The collection was amassed by Baron Johan Otto Raben-Levetzau (1904-1992), the owner of Aalholm Castle.
In the early 1960s, in an unused barn on his estate, he found a forgotten 1911 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Roi de Belges that his family had ceased to use when he was a young man.
The find started a passion for car collecting; and in 1964 the baron established the Aalholm Automobile Museum. The museum was situated on the castle grounds and continued until 2007, long after the baron died and the castle had changed owners.
The auction is taking place August 12 at Nysted, Denmark. A total of 175 vehicles are going on the block. They are mostly cars, but they also include a Danish royal train carriage from the 1890s, a 1903 Wright Brothers aeroplane replica, and several century-old motorcycles.
There is no common thread to the Aalholm collection. The cars were manufactured on both sides of the Atlantic. They include several Ford Model T's, and several more Model A's. Most cars were premium models in their day (Delahayes, Delaunay-Bellevilles, Rolls-Royces), but there are also vehicles as workaday as a 1960 Chevrolet Corvair and a 1963 Heinkel Kabine. Cars range in age from a 1902 Rambler Model C Runabout to a 1985 Ferrari Testarossa, and span every era in between.
Some of the cars have connections to well-known personages. The Testarossa was purchased new by Prince Victor-Emmanuel de Savoie, the controversial pretender to the Italian throne whose personal history includes arms dealing, manslaughter, and charges of corruption.
A car going under the hammer with a more benign royal connection is the 1986 Jaguar XJ-6 that was owned by Queen Ingrid of Denmark (1910-2000). Her Majesty was the daughter of Sweden's king, the wife of Denmark's, and the mother of Denmark's current queen. She was guilty of no greater scandal than being stopped for speeding in one of the several Jaguars she owned throughout her life.
She may have favored Jaguars out of distaff patriotism. Her mother was a British princess and she herself was once viewed as a potential (and no doubt more suitable) bride for the cousin who instead married Wallis Simpson.
A full list of the vehicles at auction can be viewed here.
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