Classic Cars

Beyond F1, the victories and failures of motor sport barely break free from the enthusiast bubble. Back when the Lotus Cortina exploded onto the circuits 60 years ago, everyone knew about it. Its successes did more than prove the car’s abilities – they gave every model, even the most humble 1200, an aura of dashing glamour. I was thinking about this as I stepped up into the ‘Tim’ Birkin/Jean Chassagne ‘Blower’ Bentley that raced for 20 ferocious hours at Le Mans 1930 before it expired with a dropped valve and put a conrod through the cylinder block. Given the long shadow cast by the Blowers you’d think they were responsible for most of the wins. They weren’t, but they have a heroic quality that casts a spell over anyone with…

It all goes back to the branch manager at my local bank when I was growing up,’ says John Purcell as he takes in the 1976 TVR Taimar. ‘His Grantura left an imprint that I’ve never been able to erase. “Gosh,” I remember thinking. “He must really love his cars.” It’s the shape that TVRs had in that era that really sticks with me, and the Taimar was even more stunning than the rest. That tailgate with its huge, curving window looked like nothing else – Jensen Interceptor aside – and just seeing it catapults me back to my youth. But I’ve never driven one. Or any TVR for that matter.’ Today that changes. John is about to transform his Blackpool dream into reality. ‘I’ve died and gone to heaven…

We idolise the 1963 Chevrolet Sting Ray Corvette because of its split rear window, something that new owners complained they couldn’t see out of at the time. Even the engineering whizz behind the Corvette, Zora Arkus-Duntov, objected to it on visibility grounds. GM quickly changed it with a full rear window after only a year. And it’s now amazing to think that in the late Sixties people would cut out the split on ’63s and fit rear screens from later cars. It’s a flamboyant, impractical design flourish from styling chief Bill Mitchell that has given those first-year C2 Sting Rays iconic status. But I bet you didn’t know you could buy a really mint split-window ’63 here in the UK for just £78,200. That’s what Bonhams drew at April’s Goodwood…

Bonhams usually does well with its Goodwood sales – aperfect location with enthusiasts ‘in the mood’. This year’s Members’ Meeting looked good at first glance with a 73.4% sales rate, but that was thanks to a large chunk of lots having no reserve. There were almost no surprise high scores, and more evidence of weak areas of the market getting weaker. The decline of E-type values was under-scored when one of the first year’s most highly collectable ‘external bonnet catch’ roadsters sold for a near-low-estimate £172,500. It was the 295th left-hand-drive example, so there’s that steering wheel position to chip the value away in a UK sale. And it was an older restoration – around 20 years ago. But not many years ago this car in this condition would have…

Alife filled with extreme ups and downs, seeing many changes and mixing with actors and racers, an eventual redemption after rocky times, yet most importantly always maintaining an air of essential coolness. We could be talking either about Steve McQueen or this Ferrari 275GTB/4, which McQueen became the first owner of in 1967 and kept for four years. The GTB/4 is to be offered by RM Sotheby’s at its Monterey sale in August, exactly nine years after it was sold there in 2014 for a record $10,175,000, thanks to the McQueen factor. A similar car, possibly in better condition, went for $3.75m at the same sale. The buyer then was the late UK collector David Moores, whose estate is now selling the car. That price was achieved without the usual…

Analysis of online and live auction sales results over the last decade has shown that the number of classic and collectable vehicles sold online overtook live sales almost exactly at the start of the first covid-19 lockdown. All sales tracked by Hagerty were plotted, with dedicated, timed online auction sales rising from zero in 2013 to nearly 30,000 vehicles sold in 2022. In the same time period, live auction sales rose from around 18,200 to 19,500, an increase of 7%. The trend lines demonstrate that live sales were already dropping slightly and online auctions growing, even before the lockdowns, but that web-based sales have continued to boom since then. The report coincides with another from The Daily Vroom that placed three UK sellers in the seven leading online auction sites…