12 Cylinder Ferraris really struggled at the recent Historics at Ascot sale, however when coupled with poor Ferrari V12 sales at Villa Erba we can’t help feeling that something is slipping – but is it the market or the marque?

Political turmoil and economic uncertainty rarely make for a strong and stable car market. Classic car auction sales in 2017 have been underwhelming at best and recent reports don’t suggest that the best is yet to come.

We saw at Historics at Ascot’s recent auction that six 12 Cylinder Cavallinos were offered for sale, but only two sold and were the cheapest of their respective type. A 2009 LHD 599 GTB in pseudo GTO spec and a 1995 456GT, which sold for £84,000 and £33,600 respectively. The cars that didn’t sell, however were a 2008 599 GTB, a 2000 456M GT, a 1989 Testarossa and additionally a 1990 Testarossa, take a look at their values by clicking on each model.

Arguably not the pick of the current Ferrari crop, then, but it is still surprising that sales fell through like they did. The Testarossa has been the darling of modern classic Ferrari talk lately, for example. We’ve seen a noticeable plateau in Testarossa values recently and it looks like the period of rapid Ferrari growth could be coming to an end…

Just as soon as we began processing the data from Ascot, another report of Ferrari’s struggling at auction came in. Ian Quest of classiccarauctionresults.co.uk said “There was a ‘quiet’ day of sales at Villa Erba and there was another common theme to be seen – that V12 Ferraris did not sell. A selection that included an Enzo, LaFerrari and F12 TDF all left the auction without new owners, bar one. This is a noticeable softening of appetite for the big Ferraris.

It doesn’t take a market specialist to know that the LaFerrari and F12 TDF are hot stuff right now and two of the best sounding cars recently produced. They are so immensely desirable that we had thought people were scrambling to get hold of one – so why did these two fail to sell if not overvaluation?

With manufacturer’s warranties expiring on the ‘Holy Trinity’ of hypercars, perhaps prospective owners are being scared off by the potential maintenance on a €3,000,000 hybrid. It’s not as if most of these cars have been driven much anyway, so anyone wanting to actually drive their new purchase is in for a hell of a shock as it belatedly goes through its service schedule. Add to this that neither of these two modern limited editions mentions explicitly which number car of model production they are, despite limited run cars traditionally wearing plaques. This may raise some Rosso Scuderia red flags and authenticity questions in buyers’ minds amidst claims Ferrari are making more of these cars than quoted.

Of the modern crop of Ferraris (the classics still sold as you would expect) only one V12 car actually sold, a 550 Barchetta, which was the cheapest road going Ferrari on sale. The boldly specced Enzo and 575 SuperAmerica remained unsold and, when coupled with the results of recent sales in the UK, just shows that people are not willing to pay top dollar for flagship Ferraris like they used to.

So is this the beginning of the end for the Ferrari boom? The results of the two auctions only a week apart sheds light where collectors might not like it shone. But is it a problem specific to Ferrari or is this indicative of an emerging trend in the classic car market generally?

Contrary to Villa Erba, sales at the Aston Martin Newport Pagnel auction saw more cars sold by number compared to last year, however 88% of these fell below the average of estimates. To add insult to injury, only 4% exceeded top estimates, whereas last year 26% surpassed expectations.

We are therefore asking ourselves, is it the market or the marque that is slipping? Ian Quest of CCAR says “the big Ferraris could well be a warning of things to come. Auctions this year have typically been slower than previous years, with more and more top end cars going unsold or falling short of estimates. As early as January former EVO editor Harry Metcalfe was predicting that this would be the year of the ‘affordable’ classic and the cheaper collector cars, and it looks like this is in full effect.

“Ferrari prices have been the market-leaders in both the size and speed of the growth. It seems logical they’ll be the first to falter too.”