They say, together we stand, divided we fall. Well, when two car companies put their heads together, automotive magic happens. Exhibit A: Ford and Shelby, Exhibit B: McLaren and Mercedes, Exhibit C: Toyota and BMW. In Europe, Ford and Cosworth's collaboration in the 80s blew headlines. More recently, the ghost of their holy union has returned to haunt us, breaking price barriers with a record-breaking online auction sale of more than half a million dollars.
It’s not the first time a classic car has sold for a speculative price. In May last year, Mercedes-Benz sold the world’s most expensive car in a secret auction – the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR 'Uhlenhaut Coupe.'
While the 1987 Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 can never be compared to the most expensive car in the world, an auction has unraveled a can of worms among self-proclaimed enthusiasts.
A survivor 1987 Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 sold on 25 February for £596,250 ($631,825) at Silverstone Auctions. Here's the kicker. The final sale was nearly three times its guide price of £150,000 ($158,950) to £180,000 ($190,739), setting a new world record.
Some diehard RS500 Sierra Cosworth enthusiasts feel opportunistic investors are manipulating the market. They think if this trend continues, this classic UK Ford racer will turn into a collector’s item, ultimately ruining the fun for fans who’d love to own the car for what it’s worth – driving pleasure.
It was more than a UK affair
Photo: Silverstone Auctions
According to Silverstone Auctions, the bidding wars on the RS500 Cosworth came down to two bidders, one from the United Kingdom and the other from Dubai. This shows that the auction wasn’t a UK affair but a global raffle, and as you’d expect – the stakes were significantly higher.
That’s not all. The 1987 Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth is by no chance an ordinary car. The original version of the racer, the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth unveiled at the 1985 Geneva Motor Show, was the first Ford car to wear the Cosworth badge.
Five thousand five hundred forty-five units were produced, 500 of them were converted by Aston Martin Tickford into the Ford Sierra ‘Cosworth RS500.' Simply put, if the RS Cosworth was a homologation Special, the RS500 is, in fact, an Evolution Special – the very best of its kind.
Under the hood, the Sierra RS500 Cosworth packed a turbocharged 2-liter engine good for 224 hp (227 ps).
The car in question was a uniquely upgraded Cosworth RS500 with 5,192 miles (8,355 kilometers) on the odometer.
The previous owner bought it around 14 years ago. Silverstone Auctions said this unit had 'patently been cared for' and lightly used during the initial owner's tenure. The description indicates "attention to the detail of this car's maintenance cannot be understated."
It was serviced and maintained during this period by Tremona Garage of Southampton, a knowledgeable local specialist with a record of preparing cars to a Concours standard.
A Sierra Sapphire RS Cosworth 4X4 sold for $115,636
Photo: Silverstone Auctions
This low mileage survivor 1987 Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 was not the only unit that broke auction banks this weekend. A Ford Sierra Sapphire RS Cosworth 4X4 with 10,727 miles (17,263 kilometers) sold for £109,125 ($115,636), twice as much as its £50,000 ($52,983) guide price.
Not too many people were happy about the half-a-million sale. On Forums like Autoshite, community members felt the auction sale blew out of proportion and blamed the huge sales spike on opportunistic 'investors' looking to make a buck.
The argument is that niche cars like the 1987 Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 will turn into art pieces destined for life under a showroom tarp. Ultimately, those genuinely passionate about these racers won’t get a chance to test their limits like they were designed to in the first place.
More money than sense?
Photo: Silverstone Auctions
It's easy to say the bidders who drove up the auction have more money than sense, but let's take a second to think about what happened at the online auction on Saturday. The previous RS500 Ford Sierra Cosworth sales record was £132,750 ($140,671). The unit had done 9,000 miles (14,484 kilometers) on the clock .
The new sale is a huge bump over the previous one (four times higher). From a market standpoint, the recent Silverstone auction sale says one thing about the bidders – they were the most enthusiastic bunch in the room.
It is essential to note that some things have changed since the global pandemic hit. Global communication has been centralized, and eCommerce is thriving – thanks to shopping habits acquired during the lockdown period. A McKinsey Global Survey of executives published in October 2020 discovered that responses from COVID-19 sped the adoption of digital technologies by several years.
“The survey results confirm the rapid shift towards interacting with customers through digital channels. They also show that the adoption rates are years ahead of where they were when previous surveys were conducted,” the McKinsey & Company survey noted.
Similarly, The New York Times early last year reported the classic car auction market was experiencing a boom in auctions conducted online. In 2021, auction site Bring a Trailer made a whopping $828 million in gross sales, double their sales in 2020 ($398 million). It is currently one of the world's largest car enthusiast auction sites.
Adam Smith, a classic performance car enthusiast from the UK, hosted Paul Linfoot of Paul Linfoot Racing, an authority figure on the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth on his YouTube channel. Paul dives into details about why he believes the classic racer is worth the $600K tag.
He believes the Cosworth RS500 will sell for a million soon. What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. We’d love to hear your opinion.
£596,250 ????????????
1987 Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth sells for a world record breaking price at @RaceRetro_ show!
Humphrey is a car enthusiast whose love and passion for automobiles extended into collecting, writing, driving, and working on cars. He got his passion for cars from his Dad, who spent thousands of hours working on his old junky 1970 E20 Toyota Corolla. Years later, he would end up doing the same with a series of lemons he’s owned throughout his adult life. Full profile
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