Everything in London costs a million quid. Ride on the tube? A million quid. Bangers and mash? A million quid. Walk past Betty Windsor’s palace? A million quid.
No wonder classic cars look cheap.
Last weekend I thought I might try to snatch a few bargains at the Coys Ascot auction held at the local racecourse of the same name. They’ve been racing at Ascot for 304 years and because it’s only 10km down the road from Windsor Castle it’s a fave of the royal family. Now I’m not saying there’s a bit of money around the town but I bet the Ascot railway station is the only one with a mega McLaren dealership attached.
There wasn’t a lot of moolah at the auction, with quite a few lots passed in or going under estimate. This could have been because: a) there were no free drinks to get us in the mood (in fact there was no alcohol); b) the Rugby World Cup was on; or c) Coys adopts the Kim Jong-un approach to media relations.
There were quite a few Australian-delivered cars in the auction. As one local trader said to me about the classic 911s on display, “we can buy these for half the price in Australia”. And there were some real barn finds that got very spirited bidding going. A 1969 MGB driven into a garage in 1981 and never moved until it turned up at Ascot brought a grand. A 1969 Alfa Junior Zagato with two motors, said to have been extensively restored in 2004 but that wouldn’t have been out of place in your local wreckers, went into the thousands.
If you are still carrying a flame for Britt Ekland despite her choosing Peter Sellers, Rod Stewart and Warren Beatty over you, you could have picked up her 1991 Rover Mini Cooper. Sellers bought Britt a Mini for her birthday but some dastardly scoundrels stole, stripped and crushed it. Britt ordered this one herself, owned it for five years and sold it after her divorce from Slim Jim Phantom (real name James McDonnell). Women are so fickle, aren’t they? This is a seriously good-looking car. Black with white racing stripes, cassette player (come on I know you’ve got your collection in a shoebox under the bed with the pencil to roil the tape back on), red carpet and a great cigarette smell inside. Around $14,000.
The car I wanted was the 1980 Ford GT40 L replica. Not a kit car, this beautiful, beautiful beast was professionally built as a race car complete with a Cobra engine. It went for around $100,000, which is probably what the engine is worth.
If you are thinking about a GT40, and why wouldn’t you with the 50th anniversary of Ford’s thrashing of Ferrari at Le Mans coming up next year, here’s a thought. For $170,000 you can buy the US-built Pathfinder GT40R, pictured, that’s bolt-for-bolt identical to the original.
This is a shortened version of the article from The Australian. Read the rest by clicking here.
Out of place was a 1947 Ford V8 Woody station wagon (or shooting brake in Ascot). Last I heard California girls aren’t riding much wild surf and not having many beach parties with Annette Funicello in Berkshire. Highlight of the sale was a 1937 Jaguar SS 100. In 1992 it was restored to an inch of its life in a three-year project that would have cost its owner about the $600,000 it sold for last week.
