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Gary Cooper's 1935 Duesenberg SSJ fetches record price at Pebble Beach

The 1935 Duesenberg SSJ formerly owned by Gary Cooper sold for a jaw-dropping $22 million over the weekend at the Gooding & Co. Pebble Beach auction, setting a record for the most valuable pre-war car ever sold at auction. It also appears to have become the most expensive American collector car ever sold at auction, eclipsing the very first Shelby Cobra ever made, which sold for $13.75 million in 2016. The Duesenberg was also the lone American-made entrant in the list of top 10 sellers, which was crowded with the names Ferrari and Porsche. You have to go all the way down the list to No. 21 to find the next American car: a 1930 Packard 734 Speedster Phaeton, which sold for a mere $1.127 million. All told, Gooding & Co. said it realized more than $116.5 million in auction sales over the weekend, with a whopping 25 cars sold for north of $1 million, an 84 percent sales rate and an average transaction price of $947,174. Clearly this is how the other half 1 percent lives. Gooding & Co. said there were five world-record sales at the auction. Joining the Duesenberg were a 1955 Ferrari 500 Mondial Series II, which sold for $5.005 million; a 1958 Ferrari 250 GT Tour de France Berlinetta, $6.6 million; a 1967 Ferrari 330 GTC Speciale, $3.41 million; and a one-of-two 1966 Ferrari Dino Berlinetta GT, $3.08 million. Oh, and that 1969 Ford Bronco test vehicle we told you about? The one that was rebadged by Holman & Moody as a Bronco Hunter? It sold for $121,000, which was well below the expected range of $180,000 to $220,000. Perhaps it was the presence of all those gorgeous Porsche Spyders and Ferraris that meant collectors weren't interested in boxy, utilitarian off-roaders. View 24 Photos Gooding and Co. had expected the convertible Duesenberg coupe to go for more than $10 million. It was one of only two of its kind built by Duesenberg — the other having gone to Clark Gable — with a specially shortened, 125-inch wheelbase and a supercharged straight-eight with double overhead cams, able to produce around 400 horsepower and a top speed of 140 miles per hour. It features a lightweight open-roadster bobtail body produced by LaGrande out of Connersville, Ind. The car was also owned at one point by race driver Briggs Cunningham.

This is the amazing Christmas wonderland Ferrari builds for kids every year

Granted, when we think of a "Ferrari Christmas Wonderland" our dreams naturally manifest something like a red FF with a bow on the hood and keys on the seat, parked in front of a Fiorano Circuit that's ours for the day. A guy's gotta dream, right?
But, luckily for a lot of beaming children and their grateful, non-selfish parents, Ferrari's gift back to the people of Maranello is far more festive. The Italian automaker clearly pulls out all of the stops for its annual Kids Christmas party to celebrate the season. The event, which sees the Ferrari grounds transformed in to a veritable amusement park in a holiday theme, seems pretty massive of scale and impressive in its detail.
Click through to the video clip below to see what we mean, and pay special attention about two-thirds of the way through, when a special contingent of 'Santas' drop by to say "Boun Natale."

Ferrari 488 GTE and GT3 unveiled at Mugello

Ferrari is preparing its latest assault on sports car racing with new racing versions of the 488 GTB. Presented over the weekend at Mugello, the lineup includes both GTE and GT3 racers to replace the current models that were based on the 458 Italia. Though little in the way of details were revealed at the vehicles' presentation, the principal change they present over the accomplished versions they replace are their new turbocharged engines. The 3.9-liter twin-turbo V8 replaced the 4.5-liter atmospheric V8 in the road-going version, and is now carried over to the race track as well. Output will, of course, be catered to the regulations pertaining to both classes. Not to be confused with the Volkswagen's hybrid lineup, GTE is the category that replaced the previous GT2 class, and with it absorbed the defunct GT1 class, as well. It's run principally at Le Mans and its associated championships, and the outgoing Ferrari 458 Italia GT2 has proven a force to be reckoned with. That car took top honors in its class every year since the inception of the FIA World Endurance Championship, and won its class twice at Le Mans. Its turbo successor will have quite a challenge in keeping up that legacy. The GT3 class, meanwhile, is a step below, running in the Blancpain Endurance Series, Pirelli World Challenge, and the like. Here the teams running Ferrari equipment could use some extra help, and the new 488 GT3 aims to deliver that competitive edge to get ahead of rivals. Those include GT3 racing versions of the Aston Martin V12 Vantage, Audi R8, Bentley Continental GT, Lamborghini Huracan, McLaren 650S, Mercedes-AMG GT, Nissan GT-R, and Porsche 911 (to name just a handful). Ferrari presented the pair at its end-of-year Finali Mondiali event, which wraps up the various regional Ferrari Challenge series run around the world. This year's was held this weekend at the Mugello circuit in Italy. Last year's was in Abu Dhabi where the FXX K was revealed. The previous year's was also held at Mugello, where the current 458 Challenge Evoluzione was presented. The 2016 event is scheduled to be held in North America for the first time at Daytona the weekend of December 1-4, 2016. With the GTB, Spider, GTE, and GT3 variants now presented, the next step in the fleshing out of the 488 lineup will be to present the new Challenge racer for the company's own spec racing series.