ANGLIA CAR AUCTIONS APRIL REVIEW

REVIEW: ANGLIA CAR AUCTIONS, KINGS LYNN, APRIL 14

As usual, there was a massive crowd at ACA’s King’s Lynn sale on April 14 with, at the time of writing, 210 of the 260 car entries sold either under the hammer or following post-sale ‘negotiation’ – the latter, incidentally, is something they’re rather good at here.

These are now big sales which attract live buyers from right across Britain and phone bidders from overseas. There’s also usually something to suit all classic tastes and pockets for all practical abilities.

This sale was no exception, with the biggest price-tag sales being a pair of E-Type Jaguars; a 1973 V12 Roadster made £83,700 including ACA’s six per cent plus VAT premium, and a 1965 Series 1 4.2 Coupe at £64,660. Of more recent manufacture, a pair of Ferraris, namely a 2001 360 Modena Spider and a 2002 360 Modena made £59,000 and £57,000 respectively.

As noted elsewhere in this issue, a range of mega-low mileage cars from ‘The Northampton Collection’, all of which were offered without reserve, all did well – as well as the £20,000 1973 MGB GT we reckon the £11,872 made by a 1983 Metro Vanden Plas – an ex-Patrick Collection car that had driven just 757 miles – might be a new record price for a 2WD Metro in the classic era.

Returning to the Jaguars, the ex Ronnie Mc Cartney 1963 Jaguar MkII rally car was bid strongly to end at £48,760 inclusive, and further giving the lie to those who were predicting the death of the ‘modest’ pre-war market a few years back, a well-presented 1928 Austin Seven Gordon England Cup two-seater made £21,730. A nice-but-not-perfect older restoration 1933 Seven box-saloon broke through its £3500-£4500 estimate to finish at £6254 inclusive.

For many, though, it’s the range of more affordable/run-of-the-mill classics that are most interesting here, and really it’s the story that we are all very familiar with; strong demand but an extremely knowledgeable market that can tell the difference between good and average examples and will pay well for the former. Continuing the small Austin theme, a tidy-looking one-family-until 2010 1957 Austin A35 in Speedwell Blue made £3710 against a £2000-£2500 estimate, and despite having the nastier V6 engine, a clean-looking 1989 Volvo 760GLE estate (offered without reserve) made £1700.

A selection of projects was also offered, including three more Jaguars. A ex-New Zealand 1951 XK120 OTS sold for £46,640, a 1958 Jaguar XK150 3.4 Roadster sold new in Singapore but in the UK since 1971 sold for £32,860 and an ‘almost the right model’ 1968 Jaguar 340 manual/overdrive which needed everything but was complete and basically unmolested was well-bought at £2650 inclusive.

The £950 Austin A50 certainly looked scruffy and unkempt, closer inspection revealed that it was actually quite sound in all the usual places – hopefully it’s gone to be restored; under a grand for a running Cambridge is, unfortunately, banger-racing territory these days. A rough but seemingly-complete Standard Ten pick-up made £1500, while a theoretically restorable but much-dismantled MGB GT with docs and allegedly 40,000 on the clock sold for £350.

And finally… A 1997 Citroen ZX 1.4 Elation might not be everyone’s idea of a classic, but the 34,000 miles ‘Fresh from Frinton’ example sold here for just £680 inclusive was spotless in every respect and came with a pile of servicing and other receipts more than an inch thick. Preserve it or use it as a daily, it’s a lot of lovely car for little over a week’s wages; and being a 1.4 it even qualifies for the cheaper rate of pre-2001 VED.

The next sale here is on June 16th. For more details call 01553 771881 or log on to Anglia Car Auctions

ANGLIA CAR AUCTIONS