Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato tipped to sell for record £15m

The most valuable British motor car ever to be offered at a European auction is going under the hammer at the Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed sale in July.

The Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato was raced by two-time Formula 1 world champion Jim Clark and is believed to be worth around £15m, the Daily Express reports.

James Knight, chief of motoring at Bonhams, said: “It is, by some distance, the most valuable British motor car ever to be offered at a European auction and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for this historically significant vehicle.”

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The current auction record is held by a 1929 Bentley Blower driven by racing driver Tim Birkin, which made £5.4m at the Bonhams sale in 2012.

However, the DB4 GT Zagato would need to exceed its estimated £15m value to set a world sales record for a British car, says the Goodwood Road and Racing website. The most expensive car in history is a $22.55m (£16.2m) Aston Martin DBR1, sold at last year’s RM Sotheby’s sale in Monterey, California.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the 1961 DB4 GT Zagato headed for auction is “an exceptionally rare racing version of an already-rare sports car”.

It is one of just two lightweight “VEV” variants of the sports car, which was famously raced - and crashed - by Clark at Goodwood Circuit in 1962, the newspaper says. The car was crashed again in 1993, at which point it was retired from competition.

The auction will take place on 13 July at Goodwood, in Chichester.