Autoblog

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, your conundrum has arrived: cars and wine have met in support of the disadvantaged children of south Florida. Every year for the past eight, the auction at the Naples Winter Wine Festival has drawn the most discerning connoisseurs in the Sunshine State to bid on rare bottles of epic vintage to raise funds for the Naples Children and Education Foundation. Our sister-site Luxist reports that the auction raised $14 million this year.

In addition to the potable lots, every year the auction also features some of the most luxurious automobiles in which the benefactors could haul their cases of vino home. At last year's auction, the first Rolls-Royce Phantom DropHead Coupe raised $2 million, a Bentley Continental GTC sold for $1.3 million, $790k was raised through a raffle for a special Maserati Quattroporte, and $260k bought a Lexus LS 600h L. This year the auction featured two luxury coupes: a Bentley Brooklands and a Maserati GranTurismo. Surprisingly, neither of the two luxury coupes was painted wine red or burgundy, but that didn't stop them from selling for big bucks. The Bentley is the first of the new Brooklands to reach the US market, and sold to Monte and Usha Ahuja for $450,000 – more than a hundred grand over list price. The specially-prepared Maserati GranTurismo, meanwhile, went for more than three times its MSRP for a bid of $350,000.

[Sources: Bentley and Maserati]

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]