MICRO STASH HITS THE MARKET

Museum’s collection – built up over four decades – is put up for sale, with estimates starting at just £400

ne of Europe’s biggest collections of microcars – including rare British, German and Italian classics – is going under the hammer this Friday (10 July).

Doretheum, an Austrian auction house, is selling a stash of cars built up over more than four decades by Norbert Mylius and the late Erich Schenkel , two former schoolfriends from Vienna who built up a passion for scooters – and later microcars – after racing and restoring them in the Fifties and Sixties.

The pair’s collection went on to become the Rollipop Museum in

OEggenburg, founded by Norbert and Erich’s daughter Renate, which closed last year, and all of the vehicles entered into the onlineonly sale are former exhibits.

An auction spokesman said: ‘These scooters and cars gave the first spark of freedom to those growing up in the post-war years, including Norbert and Erich. Their passion turned into a lifetime of restoring and collecting, and the collection they built up wasn’t dedicated to the fastest or most beautiful vehicles, but the ones that you got you mobile, no matter how pragmatic or bizarre they were.

‘More than seven decades of passion, and more than 40 years of collecting and restoring, have gone into the 120 scooters, cars and other items in the sale. It’s hard for them to say goodbye to the vehicles, but the consolation is that they’re all being brought together, for one last time, for this sale.’

British rarities in the sale include a 1965 Peel Trident, estimated to sell for around ¤10,000 (£9030), a 1959 Scootacar MkI, estimated to sell for around £3k, and a 1959 Bond Minicar, expected to fetch around £2k. While all the lots – which also include scooters, pedal cars and automobilia – are described as being in good condition, as former museum exhibits they’re described as needing recommissioning.

CCW predicts that many of the lots will sell for more than Dorotheum’s estimates, due to the strong market interest in bubble cars, even in project cars. Recent examples that have surprised market watchers include an unrestored Messerschmitt KR200 sold at Charterhouse a year ago, which smashed through its £5k upper estimate and sold for £12,200, despite not having run in more than 35 years.