Autoblog

The annual Naples Winter Wine Festival is, as you may have surmised, a wine-centric event. What we didn't know is that the annual festival auction, which raises money for Collier County children's charities, would produce some final bids that wouldn't seem out of place at a cash tornado like Barrett-Jackson.

Case in point: the first customer Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe. The new convertibles carry a starting price of $407,000, making them ultra-ultra-exclusive to begin with. They won't start arriving until this summer, but real estate developer Raymond Lutgert can rest easy in the knowledge that no person in North America will get one before he does. That's because he paid $2,000,000 for the privilege of getting the first one to come across the pond.

Coming in second to the new Roller was a Bentley Continental GTC, which pulled in an equally-staggering winning bid of $1.3 million. With that kind of money flying around, the $260,000 that was put up for a 2008 Lexus LS 600h L seems like a mere pittance until you stop and think about it for a moment. Finally, $790,000 was raised through the sale of $5,000-a-pop raffle tickets. The prize? A one-off Maserati Quattroporte Automatic that was built specifically for the festival. Painted Bordeaux red, the car sports matching carpets and stitching, unique wheels, and custom door moldings that announce its exclusive nature.

If the wine festival was able to conjure up cars this good, we can only imagine the quality of the vino that was crossing that auction block...

We've posted a pair of related press releases after the jump.

UPDATE: Rolls-Royce press release added as well.

[Sources: Naples Daily News via Luxist, Naples Wine Festival, Rolls-Royce, Maserati]