With Britain basking in some fine summer weather, there was a good turnout at the 25th June auction and buyers were out in force. By the time the dust had settled, 110 of the 167 vehicles on offer had successfully changed hands for a total of just over £850k giving a clearance rate of 66%.
Top price of the day went to an extremely rare 1962 Lotus Type 23 with an extensive Australian race history from the 1960s to the late-1980s. Number 16 of only 131 made, it had been on static display in a private UK collection for the last 25 years so was in need of recommissioning but fetched a healthy £51,520 and is now off to a new home in Belgium.
The Fast Ford market seems to be holding up well in a time of widespread price corrections among pre-1980 cars. A beautifully restored 1978 Ford Escort Mk2 RS2000 had no trouble finding a buyer at a whisker under £32,000. A highly original 1991 Ford Sierra Sapphire Cosworth with just three owners but a relatively high 122k miles fetched £21,840 and a nicely restored 1991 Ford Fiesta RS Turbo with 73k miles raised £14,630.
The market for Series Land Rovers has evolved significantly in recent years and of the seven on offer all but one were sold. Top price went to a beautifully restored 1949 Series One 80”, an early ‘ring pull’ gearbox example which fetched an impressive £38,100. Next best was a 1976 Series Three 88” which had also been fully restored with a few choice upgrades and fetched £21,420, again an extremely good result and proof of how sought-after this once relatively unloved model has become of late. By way of comparison, a slightly battle-scarred but mechanically sound 1954 Series One 86” made £9,630 and a similar 1965 Series 2A made £6,720.
Pre-war cars have not been having such a good time lately, the more complex and big-engined models being hardest hit. Nevertheless, six of the nine on offer found new homes. A really lovely 1928 Vauxhall 20/60 Tourer with coachwork by Holdens of Australia looked remarkable value at £19,390. On offer from a deceased estate, it had been acquired by the owner for over double that amount barely five years before which says a lot about the state of this market sector. The same could be said of a 1926 Rolls-Royce 20hp which also looked like a great buy at just £15,680, the price no doubt being hampered by non-original Horsfield tourer coachwork which had been fitted in the 1960s.
Simpler pre-war models like the Austin Seven are still holding up relatively well. A beautifully restored 1926 Austin Seven Chummy romped well beyond its £10k reserve to finish on £14,340 while a super little 1935 Austin Seven Special with polished aluminium two-seater bodywork fetched a whisker under £9,000.
Once the backbone of any classic car auction, Sixties icons like the Jaguar E-Type and the Healey 3000 have taken a bit of a tumble lately. Of the three E-Types on offer only one was sold, a really sharp 1970 Series Two 2+2 Coupe which made £36,960. The 1963 Series One 3.8 Coupe failed to find a buyer at £60k but would comfortably have made £70k+ just a year or so back. In similar vein, a 1966 Austin-Healey 3000 Mk3 BJ8 with various Denis Welch upgrades looked stonking value at £31,580.
Early Minis have a devoted fan club and are holding up well in the current market. A freshly restored 1971 Morris Mini Cooper S Mk3 looked like a lot of fun for £20,160 while a 1962 Morris Mini-Minor Mk1 in barn find condition and with its roof chopped off almost doubled its estimate to finish on £7,400.
A pair of cute Fiat 500s also did well, a LHD 1970 example with its roof and doors removed and with wicker seats in imitation of the famous Jolly beach car made £15,680 while a smart LHD 1964 500D almost doubled its estimate at £6,130.
At completely the other end of the spectrum, a wonderfully over-the-top 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am done up as a replica of the Smokey and the Bandit car found an extrovert new owner at £15,120. A couple of other gigantic American barn finds were also sold for rather less – a 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood Series 75 Limousine fetching £4,260 while an equally huge 1950 Chrysler Windsor C48 Limousine made £2,250. Quite literally vast amounts of metal for the money!
Attracting a great deal of attention during the viewing was another considerably smaller barn find – a glamorous 1965 Mercedes-Benz 220SE Coupe W111 Series. Languishing in a barn in Gloucester for the last 50+ years, it looked a bit sad and dirty on the outside but open the doors and it was still virtually ‘showroom fresh’ with a mere 17k miles on the odometer. In need of sympathetic restoration and quite possibly the most original, lowest mileage example surviving, it was a great buy at £27,875, being potentially worth at least double that amount when finished.
Another amazingly low mileage survivor was a 1966 Ford Transit Mk1 Custom Campervan conversion with under 5k miles on the clock which was snapped up for £15,800. A beautifully restored 1966 Ford Thames Minibus found a new home at £17,470 and was surely the finest example remaining.
With a heat wave just about to hit the UK, a really super 1990 Jaguar XJS V12 Convertible with only 46,500 miles on the clock looked like a great summer buy at £15,120 while an equally good 1981 Mercedes-Benz 280SL 107 Series with 65,400 miles raised a healthy £19,050.
The more modern classics also sold well, notable results including a 2008 Porsche Boxster RS60 with 74,500 miles which fetched £17,920 while a 2001 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 3.6 with 101k miles and desirable 6-speed manual gearbox made £14,000. A 1999 Mercedes-Benz C43 AMG (W202 Series) also comfortably beat its £5k reserve to finish on £8,800 – a quite exceptional result considering the car had covered 184k miles. Clearly this rare AMG model has shot up in value recently as it was rare for them to fetch much over £5k with less than half that mileage until now. One to watch, perhaps…
The next Brightwells Classic Vehicle auction will be on 6th August with a closing date for entries of 22nd July so if you are thinking of selling, please get in touch by calling 01568 611122 or by emailing [email protected].
