Brightwells’ latest timed online sale was packed full of quirky classics and some real bargains. Here are our highlights

Brightwells’ timed online sales are always packed full of variety and its February sale was no exception, with the team even adding suitable bows to a pair of his ‘n’ hers Rolls-Royces to mark Valentine’s Day. Of the two, our pick for a touch of affordable luxury was the unusually nice 67,000-mile Shadow 2 that sold for £9184, while an older Crewe product was a confusing but undeniably appealing mash-up of Jaguar MkVIII running gear and chassis wearing a William Arnold Derby Bentley body. Known as the ‘Jentley’ it made an impressive £21,280.

The Lancia Thema 8.32 which features in the sale preview film on our Classics World YouTube channel remained unsold, but the car we contrasted it with in a twin test on www.classicsworld.co.uk, the Mustang-engined MG ZT 260, was bid up to £7900. Other MGs that caught our eye in the preview were a pair of round-wheelarch Midgets, one of them sporting just 30 miles since being restored with a Heritage shell 22 years ago. Looking and feeling like new, it made £11,300, which compared to the cost of restoring a car to this standard looked like good value. Meanwhile, a 1963 example subject to a respectable and perhaps more useable older restoration sold for £5153 and a nicely upgraded MGC made £20,160, which made it a compelling alternative to the higher end of the MGB market.

Other British sporting icons included a non-turbo X180 Lotus Esprit at £15,904 and a pair of TVRs: a superb-sounding ‘wedge’ 350i upgraded to 3.9-litre spec sold for £6440 and a 70,000-mile Chimaera 400 offered a whole lot of performance for your £6497.

A very different take on ’80s performance, meanwhile, was offered by a Porsche 924 Turbo project, which although a non-runner did appear complete and sold for £1736. It made an intriguing alternative to a ’74 Scimitar project at £1500, while European coupe style from an older generation was offered an extensively restored Volvo P1800S that sold for £25,760.

Rather more prosaic meanwhile but many times rarer was a Rover 216; a 1989 example of the ‘SD3’ that boasted under 25,000 miles and sold for £1750. And if Hondas were your thing, £2800 bought you possibly the most understated and capable executive car ever built: the Legend in 3.5-litre VTEC V6 form complete with all-wheel drive.

Find the full results at www.brightwells.com, with the next sale scheduled for March 27.

  • Restored into a Heritage shell back in 2001 as a gift, this retro-styled round-wheelarch Midget had covered just 350 miles since it was completed. It still looked like new and made £11,300.
  • This 1981 Porsche 924 Turbo project came complete with the new panels needed to complete it, but although the engine was free the car was a non-runner. At £1736 it was surely worth the gamble.
  • This 25,000-mile Rover 216 SD3 was an impossibly mint survivor. It must have made somebody’s day at a bargain sale price of £1750.
  • This TVR 350i was surprisingly together for a survivor of the ‘wedge’ era and its 3.9-litre engine sounded tremendous. It sold for £6440.
  • This Stylish Volvo P1800S had received a huge amount of restoration work include a bare-metal respray, boasting an overdrive gearbox and Minilite-style alloys, it sold for £25,760.
  • This 1996 TVR Chimaera 400 has covered 70,00 miles and had been the subject of much recent expenditure. A bargain sale price of £6497 put it in the same arena as the older 350i.
  • One of the most unusual vehicles in the sale was this 1961 Corvair Greenbriar van. It surely represented a bargain route into air-cooled flat six ownership at £8400.
  • The MG ZT260 saw the Rover 75 platform re-engineered to take a longitudinally mounted Ford V8 driving the rear wheels, and makes a surprisingly credible performance car. This one made £7900.