Las Vegas oddballs; and why we love them

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All the flashy cars that you’d expect at a high-end auction sale in Las Vegas will be available on October 31st, when Broad Arrow holds its Las Vegas Auction 2025. Think 1950s Corvettes, 1960s Porsches, modern Ferraris, or the ubiquitous 300 SL and Viper GTS.

So let’s see what’s there that’s slightly less, er, common — perhaps something for the more seasoned motoring enthusiast. Oh, there are indeed a few unexpected surprises, and we’ll focus on those here.

First of these is a car known as a Hansen Cobra — yes, that’s ‘a’, as there were three of them, all built by the Hansen brothers of Southern California in 1952/’53. The Hansens made a box-section chassis in steel and mated that with suspension from a 1940 Ford, a Cadillac V8 engine, and a Lincoln three-speed manual gearbox. For the body, they made a wooden buck, eventually creating a fibreglass body from that. With a Studebaker windscreen and bumpers, Cadillac headlights, and Chevy rear lights and grille, the car was unveiled at the 1954 Petersen Motorama, receiving excellent coverage after the show when it appeared in a number of magazines and even on the silver screen. You could call it a Frankenstein of a car, but we wouldn’t agree. This is a great piece of motoring history, which seems almost cheap, estimated at $150,000–200,000, when you compare it to all the common classics on offer.

Ten years later, but no less intriguing, is a Maserati 3500 GTI with a prototype Spyder body by Vignale. Carrozzeria Vignale had been responsible for the pretty Sebring and built a few more one-off convertibles based on it, but this one isn’t quite so well known. Perhaps it isn’t the prettiest either? Oh, that’s an opinion, surely! But it definitely has a cool backstory. The car debuted on Carrozzeria Vignale’s stand at the 1963 Turin Motor Show, opposite Maserati's own stand showing Pietro Frua's Quattroporte and Mistral prototypes. It was also on display at the 1964 Geneva Show, now in a different colour (silver-grey) and with revised front and rear light arrangements. Although repainted back in red, it still wears these today. The fact is, it remained a one-off, which eventually got sold to a Mr. Simini of Milan. The prototype ended up in the USA in the early 1970s and was owned by one man from 1976 to 2023. It is now on the market once more, estimated to sell for $475,000–575,000 — still a million less than the 300 SL on offer, of which there are thousands…

Words: Jeroen Booij; Pictures: Broad Arrow Auctions

Details:

• The Las Vegas Auction by Broad Arrow Auctions
• Date: 31 October 2025
• Location: Wynn Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
• See all listings>>

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