Rare Lamborghini, Ferrari star at RM Sotheby's Amelia Island auctions

If you’re not aware that today’s classic car auctions are high-finance blood sports, one glance at RM Auctions’ Amelia Island webpage will set you straight.

Instead of an image of a genteel car front and center, there’s a turbo-charged list of bragging rights from last year’s auction: $35.9 million in sales, with “numerous world records established” including an Amelia Island record of $6.6 million for a 1937 Delahaye Competition Court Torpedo Roadster. And like any growth company, RM expects even better returns this year.

“Our catalog estimate for Amelia now eclipses what we sold in 2014,” says Alain Squindo, vice president at RM Auctions, whose Amelia event — which as always coincides with a weekend of activities that includes a concours d’elegance — unfolds March 14.

Another measure of RM’s success is the recent news that it has taken on a 25 percent partner in Sotheby’s, the iconic 271-year-old London house known for peddling trifles such as the Magna Carta and Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” (for $119 million). RM was founded in 1991 by Canadian Rob Myers and now includes the sub-house Auctions America. (The other big players in the European-focused space include Gooding and Company and Bonham’s, while outfits such as Mecum and Barrett-Jackson tend to target American iron.)

The logic for these two companies joining forces is simple. As the 1 percent of the 1 percent look for new ways to invest their lucre, Sotheby’s can offer RM’s services in adding investment-grade sheetmetal to perhaps an existing collection of watches, wine or art. And RM in turn gets instant access to an arguably even more exclusive clientele than the one it already counsels.

The Amelia Island auction in northeastern Florida is a fitting first for the partnership, which now officially goes by RM Sotheby’s. “Amelia is huge for us, and is in and of itself becoming one of the top three stops on the classic car auction circuit,” says Squindo. “Pebble Beach (in August) is great, but arguably this event is easier to navigate, the weather’s better, and the cars are the best of the best.”