In common with most of the classic car world over the past few months, auctioneers in the UK have largely been inactive, though in recent weeks there have been a couple of online auctions that seem to have worked well. However, there’s no substitute for being able to see the cars being sold in the metal and being in the room – or marquee, in this case – during the bidding process, and last Saturday’s Historics auction at their Windsor Lakes site was their first since Ascot in March, just ahead of the lockdown. Historics usually hold their auctions across three sites – Ascot racecourse, Brooklands Museum and Mercedes-Benz World next door – and while there is an outdoor element to these sites, the bulk of the action and the bidding itself takes place indoors.
To get around the social distancing requirements still in place in England – if slightly relaxed – the auctioneers decided to hold the event mostly in the open-air; a gamble in England even in July, but the weather gods were in a good mood that day, bathing visitors and classics in bright sunshine all day.
Cars were arranged further apart than usual, and attendees were expressly requested not to crowd together except within their own social “bubbles”. For the most part, this was effective, helped by the fact that Windsorview Lakes – itself a very attractive location from where you couldn’t actually see Windsor at all, despite the name – covers 100 acres, offering more than enough space for the almost 180 cars and over 800 attendees. Bidding took place within a large marquee, with socially-distanced seating, and supplies of hand sanitiser were placed at frequent intervals around the site. Vicki Butler-Henderson was also present again – she is now a regular at Historics auctions and adds a little stardust to the proceedings.
This was an important sale for Historics, marking a decade since their first one – we recently ran a piece that took a look at the changes in prices achieved by them across this period – and despite these coronavirus times, they had managed to attract some stellar lots, not all of them at stellar prices. I’ve attended and written about a few Historics auctions over the past couple of years and one of the things that makes them particularly interesting is the wide range of prices of the cars they sell – anything from low four-digits to substantial six-figure sums, and their 10th anniversary sale was no different.
However, perhaps the long period of lockdown and bright sunshine had served to make bidders lethargic, certainly for the first hour or so as the auctioneers struggled at times to move things along – more on that later.
As usual, with so many lots on offer, I obviously can’t mention them all, so have selected just a few of particular interest to me – if you want to check out all the cars, results of the sale can be found here: https://www.historics.co.uk/buying/auctions/2020-07-18/cars/.
Three of the most revered classic marques featured particularly strongly in this sale – Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar and Aston Martin, with the last of this trio demanding some very deep pockets, while the majority of the Mercedes were actually relative bargains, with the usual exception of the four Pagodas.
Between them these three made up over one-third of the lots; throw in eleven Porsches, ten of Crewe’s luxury carriages and another ten cars displaying the prancing horse and prestige badges were very strongly represented, but there was more to the sale than just these exalted makes, with 40 manufacturers represented in all.
Despite the presence of no less than five 1960’s DB’s, the star lot – in terms of estimate, at least – was a superb 1967 Ferrari 365/4 Daytona Spider by Scaglietti, which carried an estimate range of £580,000 to £670,000. This particular car had been gifted to racing driver Arturo Merzario, after whom it was passed around a little among various collectors before finding its way to the UK as part of a deal involving a Ford GT40 (there’s always a more expensive car); however, it didn’t sell, reaching £570k before bidding petered out.
Besides the Scaglietti Daytona, one other Ferrari stood out – for me at least – a spectacular 365GT4 Berlinetta Boxer with a mere 4,487 miles covered since new in 1975, in Azzuro Blue. Just under £10k when new back in 1975, this sold for £166,680 – the cheapest 365BB the auctioneer claimed he had ever sold. Only 388 were made, of which 58 came to the UK in RHD. I’m always slightly baffled when someone buys such an obvious driving machine and then doesn’t bother to drive it – fewer than 100 miles per year; what a waste. Hopefully it won’t just sit in a collection, but I fear that will be its fate.
Other than this superb BB, five of the ten Ferrari’s failed to find buyers, as did a superb 1971 Riviera Blue Lamborghini Espada and a beautiful 1972 911E in gold metallic with brown leather upholstery (I loved the exterior colour, was less enamoured of the brown interior) that struggled to just £64k against an estimate of £75-100k, and what looked like a relative bargain 1973 911T estimated at £38-48k sold for £45,846, another “after hours” sale. It was in good order, although brown over brown and black is just too much brown for me, even on that car. Perhaps long-hood 911’s are also slowly returning to less stratospheric prices?
Indeed, this was to be the fate of a number of the glamour lots – only three of the ‘60’s DB Astons sold, the third after the auction itself, two for under their estimate, especially when you factor in the auctioneers’ 10% commission, with the others falling well short. If this auction was any guide, it seems that buying an Aston Martin as investment strategy is no longer what it was.
However, there were also a lot of successful sales, with with four of the six Jaguar XK’s selling, and E-Types sold very well, with nine out of eleven finding new homes at prices around their estimates. In fact, of 26 Jaguars entered in the auction, no fewer than 22 sold.
There were some strong prices on a number of other cars, not least a world record price for a TR6, with a stunning fully restored (at a cost of over £70,000!) selling for £57,732 including commissions (NB all sale prices quoted are inclusive of Historics’ 10% commission). It really was exceptional, but proof once again that the best strategy in buying a classic is to buy one that someone else has already spent money on.
As usual, a number of what might be termed “future classics” were included, and it has to be said some of these did rather well – not least a spectacular (and spectacularly ugly) 2012 Spyker fetched £224,000, way over estimate, and a 2010 Ford Focus RS500 sold for £56,560, almost £20k over it’s top estimate. However, while these are of peripheral interest to us, it’s clear that some cars are already clearly marked as instant classics.
Nevertheless, there were numerous more established classics available that could be – and were – bought for sums within our usual Prime Find budget of £20,000, and indeed we’ve featured two of them as such – a huge 1994 Toyota Century Limousine that sold for £19,040 (above top estimate) and the 1981 Avanti that found a new owner for just £17,360 – within estimate, but a lot of car for the money. These two were every bit as interesting in the metal – or fibreglass in the case of the Avanti – as on the printed page, and startling amounts of car for the money. The Toyota in particular – in excellent condition – really was the epitome of luxury, with enormous presence, even parked as it was alongside some of Crewe’s finest.
Mention of limo’s leads me to one of the many – but more unusual – Mercedes-Benz on offer on Saturday, a blue 1971 230 in excellent condition, with three rows of tan leather seats. This was another post-auction sale, eventually going for £12,452, well under estimate.
While I vicariously enjoy the sheer size and scale and flamboyance of many American classics, there are not that many I’d consider owning, not least because of their hugeness and thirst, but there was a superb 1964 Ford Falcon in metallic blue with pale blue bench seats that I would take over any Mustang or Camaro. This one had a 289 cu.in./4.7-litre V8 and was in excellent condition, even if the panel fit was less than perfect. It sold at well over estimate for £31,360 – I liked it a lot.
Sticking with the blue oval, two British fast Fords also caught the eye – a very tidy Lotus Cortina Mk II in white with green side stripe and green vinyl roof that fetched £20,376 against an estimate of £19,000 to £24,000 – a bargain compared to older its Mk1 sibling, and an immaculate grey Ford Sierra RS Cosworth which surprisingly failed to find a buyer despite what seemed a very reasonable estimate of £18,000 to £23,000 and having recently had a glass-out repaint and full service.
The Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint is a little jewel of a car, and the repainted but otherwise unrestored 1962 white with blue and white interior car on sale, while not perfect, was a good example of this very pretty car but didn’t sell – another one of many for my imaginary garage.
Speaking of little jewels, there were a couple of other small sparklers available in the miniature forms of a well-restored 1965 Austin Mini Cooper S Mk1 in Almond Green with an Old English White roof and a 1964 Morris Mini Cooper S with some competition history, although only the second sold, for an above estimate figure of £29,998.
In huge and dramatic contrast, I can’t ignore the biggest car on sale – even in the company of cars like the Century limo, the 1929 RR Phantom II Open Tourer recently re-fitted with a body by Barker, stood out. Resplendent in Royal Burgundy and black, with black leather seats, masses of walnut burr and brass wheel discs, this spectacular car – a bit of a Frankenstein in some ways – fell a long way short of its £170-190k estimate. I can’t begin to imagine what driving – or parking – it must be like!
So to sum up – altogether, 132 cars (and one bus!) were sold, making 75% of the lots on offer (not including three lots of number plates), a pretty decent sale rate even allowing for those sold with no reserve. The breakdown looked like this:-
Sold – No reserve – 22
Sold – below estimate – 30
Sold – within estimate – 35
Sold – above estimate – 46
Not Sold – 45
Most expensive car of the day was the post-event 1964 DB5 at £560,000, which sold for a mere 714 times the amount achieved for the cheapest, the 1971 VW Beetle 1600 restoration project at £784 which was going to keep someone busy for quite a while. Bargain of the day for me though was probably the gold Porsche 928 – a true 1980’s supercar in excellent condition for £12,320.
A couple of general observations:
I’d noticed this at the Ascot sale, but the amount of pointless low-ball bidding stood out even more here, such as the opening bid of £400k for a DB5 that had a low estimate of £570k being one of the more extreme examples of bids that the bidders had to know stood no chance whatsoever of securing them the car, and surely a practice to be discouraged as it wastes everyone’s time?
While there were a healthy number of attendees, it did seem that a significant number of people were treating this as a family day out, picnicking among the cars and rarely venturing into the sales tent – perhaps they were keen to take the opportunity to enjoy a sunny day surrounded by beautiful cars. However, the sales figures would indicate that there were a decent number of actual buyers – indeed, Historics took what is for them a record £6.1m in gross sales, so in the end, I would think Historics were pretty satisfied with the way this innovative event had gone – while perhaps a little disappointed that some of the high-end (and therefore high commission) lots failed to sell, a majority found new homes. In any case, it was certainly good to be out and about at a classic event again!
