A Peugeot 205 has sold for £227,250 at auction. It is not the standard model of the long-lasting and popular hatchback, but one of just 200 special editions and can go at nearly 140 mph.
The car, a Turbo T 16, has the doors, windscreen, headlamp and badge of a 205 but is otherwise almost nothing like the model most people could own.
The car is a “homologation special”.
Inside and under the bonnet, the car reveals its power.
These are road cars produced to racing-rule specifications. They are extremely rare and very sought after. They were made to meet a Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) rule – in order to race, cars had to be production models, with a minimum of 200 road-legal versions to back up the claim.
This 205 is a rally car, and its like won the World Rally Championship titles of 1985 and 1986.
If you took it to its limits on a normal highway you would be in trouble pretty quickly. On the rally track, Timo Salonen was in enough control to take those two world rally crowns.
This numbered limited edition (176 of the 200) was shipped for sale from France, and is a left-hand drive. It is still perfectly legal – and is registered – to drive in the UK with less than 10,000 miles on the clock.
Four of the 200 cars were gifted to Peugeot’s president and three famous French drivers. They were painted white, the rest match the grey of this example.
Another one, believed to have belonged to Jean Todt, a former director of the FIA, realised £360,000 in 2021.
Those that were sold were originally priced at about £25,000.
After a small amount of work before the auction, this car was ready to drive away from the sale.
An actual rally-used Peugeot 205 sold in 2021 for £876,000. The most valuable Peugeot 205 of all time.
Among the other rally cars on offer at the Silverstone Circuit sale were a Skoda Fabia and a Ford Focus.
Road models of these cars are seen on every high street in the UK, but these examples were offered with top estimates of £280,000 and £380,000 respectively.
Iconic who sold the 205 said: “Understandably there was a lot of interest in this car both in the room and online, but it was a telephone bidder who secured the winning bid.”
Classic cars can be very highly priced indeed.
Steve McQueen drove this Porsche in the film Le Mans.
The cream of the crop are usually classic racing cars, though the most valuable car ever sold at auction is a 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe, one of only two prototypes of this model. Ferrari, Aston Martin, Jaguar, McLaren, and Alfa Romeo are also strongly featured in the lists of the highest valued cars ever.
Most are valued for their technical mastery and beauty.
Occasionally, cars owned by stars may come with a premium too.
Steve McQueen’s 1970 Porsche 917K made $14 million in 2017. That was a record for any Porsche at auction.
John Lennon’s psychedelic Rolls-Royce made a then world record $2.3 million in 1985, and would surely break records again today.
Recently, Elton John sold a Bentley Continental, realising $441,000. That was a reported 372% bonus on the car’s standalone value that dwarfed the average 115% premium John’s name is said to add to the value of a vehicle.
