Japanese performers fetch big results at the Shannons Winter Auction

THE 2021 Shannons Winter Auction concluded on Tuesday, with two iconic Japanese homologation cars selling for big dollars.

The hammer fell on this Mazda FD RX-7 SP for an incredible $166,000 – well above the $100-$150,000 estimated by the auction house. This particular SP shows just 83,362km and was sold at Shannons in 2018 for $112,000, making for a tidy profit on a three-year investment. It’s believed to be the only surviving ‘Brilliant Black’ car. Another SP fetched $74,000 in 2019, this time finished in the more common Vintage Red.

The RX-7 SP was created by Mazda Australia as a homologation special to compete in the 1995 Eastern Creek 12-Hour, which formed part of the Australian GT Production Car Series. Each car received an uprated intercooler, exhaust, ECU and brakes, plus a stout 4.3:1 diff. Peak output from the twin-turbo 13B was upped to 204kW, a boost over the stock 188kW. Other additions included Recaro Kevlar seats, 17-inch BBS wheels and smatterings of carbonfibre. According to Shannons, just 29 RX-7 SPs rolled off the line; 26 were built as road cars, while three were destined for the track.

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A long-time nemesis of the RX-7 also drew plenty of bidding action.

This late-production R32 Skyline GT-R was expected to sell for between $100,000 and $140,000, eventually squeezing past its estimate to reach $142,500.

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The red coupe fetched the seventh-highest price for a car in this year’s Winter Auction, beating out an LC GT-R XU-1 Torana by just $2500. Of the 13 R32 GT-Rs listed as sold on Shannons’ website, this example realised the highest price by over $50,000, and shows an odometer reading of 104,537km.

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Street Machine journalist Iain Kelly believes the writing has long been on the wall for auction results like these. “[The internet] is burning itself to the ground over a Nissan R32 Skyline GT-R and Mazda FD3S RX-7 SP selling for six-digit amounts each, but I am not sure why everyone is surprised,” he said in a post on his Instagram page. “If you did 10 minutes’ research into the collector car market you’d realise we were due for the hero cars of Group A and the ‘tuner era’ to really jump in price, because every other sub-genre of car that has gone on to earn ‘collector’ status did this at some point.

“The key is understanding that car values are tied to generations, and as younger generations come into high levels of disposable income, they seek out their hero cars and push prices for mint examples up.”

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A total of 88 cars were sold at the Winter Auction, the most expensive of which was a 1971 Ferrari Dino 246 GT Coupe. On the other end of the price range, a 1965 Toyota Crown Deluxe sold for just $8700.

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More Japanese highlights included a well-presented, first-generation RX-7 Series 3, which sold at $46,000.

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A manual factory-turbo Mitsubishi JB Starion coupe took $30,001, while a Toyota MR2 ‘Bathurst’ edition sold for $25,200.

Weight reduction was the goal of these stripped-down midships, with power steering, ABS and foglights deleted. 382 were made in total. Weight reduction was the goal of the stripped-down, mid-engined Bathurst MR2s, with power steering, ABS and foglights deleted; a total of 382 were made.