Recently a perplexing and incomplete kit of dismantled Alvis parts in various states of disrepair that ‘might’ one day be assembled into a 12/50 TE of circa 1926 was knocked down by Richard Edmonds to a Japanese bidder who had made the journey to his auction tent pitched in a Gloucestershire field. Inevitably, the winning moment was captured on a fellow traveller’s video camera!
Latest classic car auction commentary - 11/08/2015
The clearly very brave buyer invested £11,660 with premium, £2400 more than the top estimate, in the long-term future of this mechanical jigsaw puzzle from old Coventry. All the pieces will now have to be carefully packed up and despatched to the other side of the world for the puzzle to be solved.
In the most bijou and targeted sale of the provincial season, there were takers for six out of ten pre-WW2 lots in the Richard Edmonds catalogue. Acquisitions at Toddington during the Friday afternoon before VSCC Prescott weekend ranged from a 1926 Morris Cowley 11.9hp 2-Seater with Dickey and current MOT sold for £12,210 and a shabby, but amazingly running 1928 Ford Model A 3.3-Litre Phaeton taken on for £9900 - to a 1990s restored 1936 Morris Eight Series 1 Saloon bought for £3300 and some Austin Seven bits and pieces, including a restored chassis frame and a seized A7 motor and box, carried off for £340.
Such is the under-estimated appeal of certain automobilia that an album of approximately 100 early period photos of commercial vehicles and tractors realised more the A7 project, £624 with premium – and a pair of Lucas ST44/N tail lamps went for £480, the same being spent on a single Lucas spotlight. Whilst a smoking £840, more than ten times the top estimate, was forthcoming for an almost totally redundant Continental silver cigarette case engraved with signatures of early 1920s motoring personalities that could, of course, be more acceptably employed these days for carrying a non-smoker’s business cards.
This last weekend, during the 43rd AVD Oldtimer Grand Prix meeting at the Nurburgring, Coys claimed an auction record price for a Ferrari F40. Belonging to an Italian family from new in 1992, the hitherto gilt-edged Italian supercar sold to a publicly delighted German buyer who was applauded for parting with 1.12m euros (£852,000).
Some of the other results cited by the Richmond firm for being market-noteworthy were a 1937 BMW 328 Roadster sold for 562,000 euros (£399,020), a 2000 vintage Ford GT for 227,000 euros (£161,170), a 2003 Ferrari 360 for 182,000 euros (£129,220) and 145,000 euros (£102,950), another record price they reckon, was paid for a 1971 Lamborghini Espada Series II. Fuller results from this annual Ring sale will no doubt be published shortly.
In the meantime, market makers can continue to enjoy the ride as once again the Canadian Controller, due to there being only one vote for turning the cheap money tap off, has not been enabled to increase the base rate. For any rise in the cost of borrowing would result not only in there being higher interest alternative destinations for any spare cash, but any rate hike would also dramatically increase mortgage and credit card payments for the already over-stretched majority. Even if the top end of the marked traded on unscathed, both scenarios would surely depress both demand and prices for medium and lower priced classic stock.
Don’t you worry though, our frontiers must be safe and the party can go on as, from a happy holiday snap as a result of a rather obvious photo-call, General Dave is so happy with the way things are going that he has donned shorts and has been imbibing gassy beer in Portugal. Unelectable Leader Jeremy meanwhile has plenty of old fashioned solutions to all our problems.