On a Saturday afternoon just off the M25 car park, the going rate for a 1965 Lotus Cortina Mk1 - a restored and fully trimmed road car not a stripped out racer - was £41,800. £29,700 was forthcoming for a Jag Mk2 3.8 auto that had been first supplied to Australia in 1962 and repatriated in 1989 with manual-shift, and more recently converted to Getrag 5-speed all-synchro box with power-assisted steering and coil-sprung rear suspension. A neatly revived 1968 MGC Roadster cost the next keeper £14,850.
My notebook calculator reckons that 47 or 47% of the 99 cars consigned were sold under the hammer or had ‘provisional’ bids converted into sale during the auction, while discussions on others were on-going as I headed back up the M40 to catch up on F1 practice at Spa (on Sky) and watch the start of what became a perfect weekend for Our Jensen and a seriously ‘ouch’ moment for the unfortunate Lewis.
This coming weekend, auction junkies have a choice of fix, the trad and extremely well stocked Bonhams tent amongst the potentially useful jumble in the National Motor Museum grounds at Beaulieu, Hampshire, where literally a (Porlock) Motor Museum’s worth of automobilia kicks off a bumper sale at 11am Saturday 8 September, with the 100 or so cars likely to be crossing the block until dusk.
At Cholmondley Castle in Cheshire Sunday 9 meanwhile, Silverstone Auctions will be offering a younger spread of what, in the main, are likely to be pop classics at Chris Evans’ Car Fest North extravaganza, which, as at the recent Southern Fest (also run by the same Top Gear Live Showmen), will not only cater for petrolheads, but aims to provide scrumptious nosh for gastro-gnomes and plenty of decibels for pop-boppers in return for donations to the Beeb’s Needy Kids charity tin.
As long as I don’t disappear into a bottomless New Forest bog (or soupy fog, as I was in danger of doing returning far too late to my hotel a year or three back!), I hope to be back to comment on ‘what sells’ and for ‘how much’, and, more importantly, ‘why’ in this spot on CCFS later this week and next. Until then, good hunting!
