LATEST CLASSIC CAR AUCTION COMMENTARY: 01/08/2016

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Auctions Commentary from CCFS Market Analyst Richard Hudson-Evans

A never raced Carrera GTR ‘Original’ - one of only 17 built for racing by Porsche that had been driven only 109 kilometres from new in 1981 by one Japanese owner - fetched a record for model £495,000 including buyer’s premium during the Silverstone Auctions Competition Car sale that preceded Silverstone Classic weekend.

 

For although somebody else’s redundant race and rally cars are statistically difficult to disperse for anything like they would have cost their owners to prepare, a 2000 BTCC season campaigned and Rickard Rydell driven Ford Mondeo Super Tourer that had been successfully exercised in mainstream Historic Touring Racing since 2014 was lapped up by a 2016 Silverstone Classic competitor for £83,250. Most recently demonstrated at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Prodrive built chassis number 004, which was sold with a huge ‘works spares’ package, was wheeled out of The Wing saleroom on Saturday morning and promptly raced at Silverstone.

An even more rapid 1975 Ford Escort 2.0 BDG Zakspeed Replica created by Mark Wright Motorsport and powered by a John Smirthwaite built 265bhp power unit, which had been a Masters Historic Group 2 Championship winner and HSCC Supertourers Class winner, was also hammered away by the flying gavel of Jonathan Humbert for £57,375. New owner David Tomlin then promptly drove his new acquisition to a top ten qualifying lap for the 1970s and 1980s Historic Touring Car Challenge on Friday – and then went on to finish third overall in the Sunday race, won outright by Silverstone Auctions MD Nick Whale and his son Harry, who slipped out of their third auction of the weekend to share the driving of a BMW M3 E30.

Eleven old racers sold in the Thursday evening auction for just short of £1m, £989,776 with premium, the Midland firm’s highest grossing comp car warm-up session yet at what has become the largest Historic Racing meeting in Europe. An additional £2m worth of more traditional and road-going classics were then sold by the Silverstone team on the Saturday afternoon, where a post-Brexit result beating 71% sale rate was achieved ‘live’ with 40 of the 56 cars auctioned selling for £2,074,954 with premium under the hammer, and with the prospect of further post-sales.

Making nearly £65,000 more than the top estimate was a 1958 AC Ace Bristol that had been repatriated from Canada in 1990 and converted from left to right-hand drive. Subsequently treated to rebuilding of the original S series engine and transmission by Nick Finburg in order to be raced at Spa, Dijon and Silverstone in 2010, chassis BEX406 warranted a front of rostrum parking place by selling for £249,750, a stronger than retail performance. A mid-estimate £213,750 was bid for a modern Ford GT left hooker packing a 600bhp punch that had been driven 10,080 kilometres since 2005. A colour-changed since 1961 Jaguar E Type S1 Roadster - chassis number 62 no less, though without external bonnet-release handles and nearly qualifying for the next full Monte make-over, fetched £140,625, lower estimate money.

It was a remarkably bullish afternoon for E Types during what has become a close to bear market for the mass-bred cat from Coventry. For £123,750 with premium, way over the £85,000 top estimate figure, was paid by the buyer of a 1965 Series 1 4.2 Fixed Head that had been full nut and bolt restored by Lanes Cars of Collingwood in 2011 and upgraded with E-Fabrication 5-speed gearbox (though with original ‘matching number’ 4-speed box included) and 4-pot brake calipers. A very freshly restored and always right-hand drive 1970 Series 2 4.2 Coupe with bills-supporting 38,600 mileage found £118,125, thought to be a new highest price at auction for an S2 4.2 FHC.

The top performing Ferrari was a factory-striped 2009 430 Scuderia in left-hand drive with 28,338 kilometres of full Ferrari main dealer service history, car cover and battery conditioner bought for £131,625, comfortably within the guide price band. The longest bidding battle though was waged over a 1987 Ford Sierra RS 500 with warranted 19,640 mileage, less than 100 miles of which was incurred during the last 17 years of being banked in a heated showroom. The big-winged Cossie generated strong saleroom and i-interest, being applauded when eventually sold for £73,375, £3300 more than the top estimate.

On the preceding Thursday in the East Midlands meanwhile, H&H sold 71 or 58% of the 122 cars in their on-line Donington Circuit catalogue for £689,664 with premium. An E Type Jaguar Series 3 5.3 V12 Coupe, one of 2116 in right-hand drive with 48,030 recorded mileage, sold for £41,245. A 2008 movie Telstar featured 1958 Jaguar Mk1 3.4 with power-steering was auctioned Without Reserve for £32,480 and a 1963 donor dated, but 1990s built D Type Rep realised £30,520 for a deceased estate. Whereas the highest priced pre-WW2 lot, a 1933 Sunbeam 25 3.3 Straight Six 4-Door Pillarless Sports Coupe raised £33,600, while a post-WW2 Morris Ten from 1948 answering to the name of Elsie was re-homed for £10,080. Even a declared to be non-running 1973 Saab 96 V4 was transported away for £3248.

These very latest auctions confirm that there is still a market, albeit a much more selective one, especially hard for those assets that fail to seduce as was the case with 84 rejections in the three auctions reviewed. This many unsold classics - 41% of those offered - has to be down to a mixture of prospective buyers being much more cautious and in most, but by no means all cases, previously agreed vendors’ reserves now being unachievable, having been overtaken by uncertain and totally unpredictable times.

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