Artcurial Motorcars: Passion Meets Prestige

Even though Artcurial was founded in 2002, and Artcurial Motorcars in 2010, we have grown very quickly, and I think there are several reasons for this. We have a very good mix of people and a good balance between being an international auction house, but also running sales in a French way.

We are very different from other auction houses, which tend to be very English in the way they operate. We are based in Paris but many of our specialists are from all over Europe, so we have the ability to communicate very widely, speaking Italian, German, Swedish, French and English. I would say we also handle the auctions in a different way – it’s a bit more Latin and Gallic, with passion and a very good atmosphere.

Our events are a big focus for us, and we put a lot of energy into making them special. When you plan an auction you have two options; you can do an auction by itself which will be an event, or you can organise an auction to add to a current event, allowing you to reach the potential clients gathered there. For us, having sales at the Le Mans Classic and Rétromobile show has been very important. In the recent years we have noticed the buyers have changed and they like to buy at events, so we try to organise special sales in special places, very high profile, very exclusive where we are selling some of the finest and most important cars. Not just at shows, but also at places like the Peninsula Hotel in Paris, the Châteu de Vernon Museum or the Gassin-Saint-Tropez Golf Club. This has all helped to grow Artcurial very quickly into a very prominent and important auction house across Europe.

“We try to organise special sales in special places, featuring the finest and most important cars”

We have also built strong relationships with big brands. We sold the Mercedes-Benz France collection, and with Renault we will hold a very special event at the Flins-sur-Seine factory this December to sell cars from the history of Renault Sport. For us that is so exciting as we are directly in contact with the brand and directly in charge of sharing the history and provenance. My uncle was a Renault dealer, and I basically grew up in a Renault 11 rally car, so this is my passion too. It’s like an honour to organise an auction like this. Renault will only sell these cars once, so you get one chance in life to walk with the team all together to find the perfect historic cars, to restart some of them for the first time in years… you can feel in the catalogue our passion and the fact we are directly connected with the seller.

So many of the most valuable cars are racing cars. We do see some supercars and such go for high values, but for me the competition cars are the stars. I am very lucky as thanks to my job I met drivers like Jean-Claude Andruet, Derek Bell, Jacky Ickx… the engineers like Gérard Larrousse and Bernard Dudot… people like Jean Ragnotti and René Arnoux, who were my idols when I was young. It is amazing to speak with so many great people, all with their own stories.

You cannot sell these types of cars if you do not at least know how they work and what they have done. You must appreciate their places in history and who worked with them. It’s all very closely linked. When you are out doing events like rallies the people can see your genuine passion and how involved you are in this world, and it definitely gives you credibility.

For 2026 I see the classic Formula 1 market as an exciting place. When you see the prices of the supercars, suddenly F1 is still quite realistic. These are the sporting achievements from the 1980s, ’90s, 2000s, still with interesting engines and different solutions to make the cars efficient. It’s very colourful and the racing cars from the ’90s are very much in fashion. There’s a very strong generational effect as people who grew up seeing these cars can now live their dream and collect them. You have your icons such as Alpine A110s and Lancia Stratos, they will stay stable, but there is a lot of potential for ’90s cars. It’s a golden era.