Auction View by Richard Hudson-Evans
More than 34,000 enthusiasts, many from the EU mainland, browsed the 50th Beaulieu International Autojumble, where buyers spent £3.56m in the Bonhams tent on 84 per cent of the 128 classics auctioned – nearly half of them pre-war.
Top priced lot was an awesome homage to Malcolm Campbell’s first Bluebird record-breaker, built on a 1921 Napier chassis and powered by a 24-litre 12-cylinder Napier Lion aero-engine, which raised a forecast £264,700.
Other cars were making the headlines in the Silverstone Auctions tent during Salon Privé at Blenheim Palace, too. A salesroom bidder set a new UK record by successfully bidding £245,250 for a 930-type 1989 Porsche 911 Turbo SE Flat Nose, while another determined tent bidder had to pay a record £46,688 (with premium) to defeat internet contestants for the keys to a 2000 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI Tommi Mäkinen edition.
Not a record as such, but the £102,938 made by a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray split window coupé was a whopping £23,000 more than its lower estimate, and the £96,188 paid for a 1974 Lamborghini Urraco P25 was £11,000 above guide.
The sale rate may have only edged up to 54 per cent by the end of the weekend, but a not-inconsiderable £2.75m (with premium) had been bet on the futures of 37 of the 69 lots offered.
A much more bullish 81 per cent of the 194 classics driven past the Anglia Car Auctions rostrum were knocked down for another £1.16m the previous Bank Holiday weekend.
Therefore, with 17 sales by H&H in a 44 per cent sold sale in Brum, a market-encouraging total of 320 classics changed hands for £7.6m in four sales in the space of just one week.
‘A tent bidder paid a record £46,688 for a Mitsubishi Evo VI Mäkinen’