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Ferrari 400 Superamerica leads $60M RM Sotheby's sale at Amelia Island [w/video]

Just last month, two of the most venerated auction houses came together under one roof. And this past weekend, the newly christened RM Sotheby's held its first event at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, selling a record $60 million worth of classic automobiles. The event's highlight was surely the gorgeous 1960 Ferrari 400 Superamerica SWB Cabriolet pictured above. Resplendent in dark green over a red leather interior, this particular Superamerica set a record for that model when it sold for $6.38 million, with proceeds going towards a children's education charity. That price far outstrips the record $4 million that Gooding & Co. got for that sleek white Aerodinamico coupe in Scottsdale earlier this year. Among the other seven-figure items were of course some other Ferraris, including a rare '72 Daytona Spider that went for $3.3 million, along with a smattering of Jaguars, Mercedes, Alfas, Lamborghinis and Bugattis. A rare 2007 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano with a manual transmission sold for nearly triple its estimate at $682,000, and the Daytona-winning, Castrol-liveried 1988 Jaguar XJR-9 sold for over $2 million. Of course RM Sotheby's wasn't the only company holding an auction during the Florida concours. But as the event's official auction house, it brought in more than all the other participating auctioneers combined, setting a record for Amelia Island in the process. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Recap: 2013 Australian Formula One Grand Prix is all about the rubber [w/spoilers]

A pre-season full of talking points was swapped for a brand-new set of talking points after the running of the opening grand prix of the 2013 Formula One season. The consistency of the regulations from last year to this year and the triplicate dominance of Infiniti Red Bull Racing meant that no one would have been that surprised if the relative order of things remained the same. But teams found so many ways to switch things up that, in typical pre-season fashion, no one was ready to make any bets on in-season performance, and a couple of surprising players suffered the ignominy of getting it really wrong: McLaren knew it was in trouble from the very first test, while Williams drivers applauded their car as the best in years, only to have Pastor Maldonado call it "undriveable" on the very first day of practice in Melbourne.
And then there were those Pirellis, the Italian company talking up the fact that its super soft tires would only go off so quickly that it would force teams to pit at least twice during the race.
Even then, no one could have seen the first round of pit stops beginning on Lap 5.

Ferrari launches 2014 Formula One engine, tests it in a LaFerrari? [w/videos]

Ferrari is the last of the three engine manufacturers remaining in Formula One to reveal its 2014 power unit. Called the 059/3, like the Mercedes and Renault units it is a turbocharged, 1.6-liter V6 further boosted by an energy recovery system that is twice as powerful as before. The 2013 KERS was good for 80 horsepower, could power the car for six seconds and reduce a lap time by about 0.3 seconds. For 2014, the energy recovery system puts out 160 hp, powers the car for 30 seconds on full batteries and, according to Ferrari, can shave a massive three seconds per lap.
The car that surrounds this engine doesn't have a name yet - that will be chosen by Ferrari's social media followers in January from a selection of names provided by the Scuderia.
Ferrari didn't provide an audio sample of the power unit at its introduction, but a brief video taken at Fiorano has led folks to believe that the team has been testing the engine in a revised LaFerrari chassis. The clip shows a camouflaged version of the marque's new supercar fitted with a roof intake and sounding nothing at all like a V12 as it takes the hairpin and powers onto the straight.