Classic Cars June 2021
Classic Cars is the original classic car magazine. It defined the world of classic motoring 40 years ago and still does it today. Every issue is put together by our team of classic car experts and enthusiasts. Using the best expert writing and photography, the magazine helps you experience what it's like to drive, keep and restore the classic cars of days gone by. We bring the stories and people behind the cars to life - showing you how to buy, keep and enjoy your cars. Every issue of Classic Cars is packed with: - Road tests - Drive stories - Expert buying advice - News and events coverage Classic Cars is the original classic car magazine.
in this issue
welcome
Classic Cars advocating the concept of actively looking for something that needs work! The same magazine that month in, month out, goes to great pains helping you avoid undue cost and hassle. Have we lost our grip? Not at all, part of our motive behind this month’s lead feature is to help you judge when certain jobs needed on a car you’re considering are reason to run away screaming, or something to accept along with an appropriate price reduction as a route to owning the classic of your dreams. Russian roulette? Not quite. Well, it can be if you’re dazzled by some shiny paint on a bad example of a troublesome model, but our twelve choices were selected not only for their ease of ownership, but for their responsiveness to some…
south african shakedown
It looks fresh, clean and neat – it looks new. This 1969 Porsche 911E Targa has been with its restorer for just over two years. Since it went up to Johannesburg I’ve pestered the owner, Michelle Hambly, about taking the car on a road trip back to Cape Town (where both of us live) when it’s finished. Michelle is known is throughout the South African classic car community, especially the Porsche contingent. She will eagerly share early childhood memories of how her late father was always tinkering with his car in the garage and her passion for cars grew from there. However, over the past decade and a half her passion has bloomed and her days have become filled with all things Porsche. Even the curveball that 2020 threw didn’t stop us.…
cleaning up after a pagoda party
The W113 Mercedes SL, or Pagoda as most prefer to call it, has fallen in value quite substantially. In 2017/18 dozens of international dealers and restorers paraded a beauty contest of amazingly restored examples priced at £250k (and more) but the market couldn’t get its head round the concept of ‘The quarter-of-a-million- Pagoda’ and values slid back. But now might be a good time to reconsider those perfect, mint W113s because many are now back on the market for between £100k and £150k – which will be what they cost to restore. The recalibration of Pagoda prices means that there’s some serious value in those mint, chequebook restoration cars that now need nothing. ‘There’s some serious value in restored minters’ In March 2021, Silverstone dispatched an early ’64, UK-supplied 230SL manual –…
ask quentin
Classic Cayman? I have a 2015 Porsche Cayman flat-six with 22k miles and full service history that I’ve had from new. Is it a potential future classic? George Nuttall Like all Porsches, your Cayman is definitely a future classic. But it may be some time before we see prices start to rise significantly. When you carefully work out how much it cost you originally to buy, plus servicing and maintenance and the interest on the money you’ve spent owning it, any notional future gain might be wiped away completely. I wouldn’t worry about the future. Just go out and drive it – now. Quentin Willson Invest in my Astra Bertone? I own a 2004 Vauxhall Astra Bertone coupé convertible 2.0 turbo with 50k miles in very straight condition although it does have some minor cosmetic issues. It’s…
a virtual success
The event it’s paired with may have been cancelled for this year, but Silverstone Auctions went ahead with its two-day Race Retro sale online. Held over the last weekend in March, the 133 cars on offer doesn’t sound a lot but Silverstone also had a large quantity of automobilia to get through. Perhaps that smaller number of cars focused buyers a bit more because the result was a better than usual, with 80% sold. That’s even better than it looks because 36 of the lots were competition cars, which are always tougher to find buyers for. Take those out and the score for ‘street’ classics was 85.6% sold. It was also all done with very few no-reserve lots. It was also interesting to see classic Astons beating their estimates. They’ve fallen in…
market indicators
1964 Mercedes-Benz 230SL £100,125 Silverstone Auctions, live online, 27 March This result was a real surprise. Pagoda Merc values are at roughly the same level as they were four years ago, when Silverstone last sold this 230SL at its 2017 Salon Privé auction. Fresh from its restoration and colour change, it made £70,313 that day, so the £70-80k estimate it was served up with this time was hard to argue with. This has to go down as one of those cases of two very deep pockets really wanting something. 1964 Ford Zephyr 6 MkIII £9864 SWVA, Poole, 26 March You underestimate the auction performance of old Fords at your peril. To be honest we didn’t believe this car’s £4000-£5000 estimate for a second, but the end result was still something of a shock. It’s what…
