STASH OF 66 CLASSIC CARS MUST BE SOLD
Air-cooled Volkswagens, transaxle Porsches and Fords among collection forced on to the market after owner loses storage
ACheshire car collector is selling his vast collection of classics because he’s losing access to the 12,000sq ft site that he’s used to store them for the past 14 years.
Mark Thomas had been keeping the stash of classics and spares – ranging from VW Beetles to Range Rovers – in a former nursery but he’s been given until March next year to clear the site, so he’s now looking for new owners for each car, some of which face being scrapped if new custodians can’t be found.
The collection includes 12 Volkswagens, five Jaguars and three transaxle Porsches.
ACheshire-based car collector has decided to sell his vast collection of cars – after losing the storage that has housed them for the past 14 years.
Mark Thomas has amassed the stash of classics and spares – ranging from Volkswagen Beetles to Range Rovers – in a 12,000sq ft former nursery, but now has until March to clear the site.
Mark has now set up a Facebook group to advertise the cars and has had thousands of enquiries from classic fans from across the UK. He said: ‘I’ve always had multiple cars. And always had some sort of premises to house them. I previously had to keep a tether on how many motors I had; I think I had up to around 14 or 15 motors at a time. Then, 13 or 14 years ago when I got that huge greenhouse, I didn’t need to keep to that figure, because it felt like I had unlimited space.
‘I’ll do up the ones that don’t sell in smaller premises and scrap the ones that are too far gone. There are some I hope don’t go, but everything is for sale for the right offer.
‘Some suggested that I take the better cars to auction, but I felt that [the Facebook group] was a better way to go.’
The oldest cars in the collection are air-cooled Volkswagens; in a former life, he was marque specialist based in a Broadheath, Greater Manchester, known as Mr Bug, whose ‘Orange Squash’ shortened Beetle appeared in several publications. A 1959 Beetle project, with many rare components and with a lot of welding completed joins his first car, a 1967 1500 bought in 1985, along with two other Beetles, a Cabriolet MkI and three Golf MkIIs along with a 1979 T2 Viking campervan conversion.
However, it’s an ex-Ford press fleet Escort Mk3 XR3 that has attracted the most attention – and it’s already found a new home. Once part of a vast 404-car fleet used to promote the new model in 1980 – when journalists drove the cars on a then-unfinished part of the M4 in Wales near the Ford factory in Bridgend – just six are thought to survive.
Former XR Owners’ Club PR secretary, Dave McKee, is the car’s lucky new owner and he’s already restored two other ‘TTW’ publicity XR3s. He said: ‘I met Mark at a Blackpool Ford Day, as I was there with ‘100W’ [another XR3 press car]. I was surprised when he told me that he had one in his barn; ‘100W’ was the only one to come to market in a long time.
‘Mark’s car is in poor condition but any press fleet car is rare. I think Mark let me buy his as I have restored the other two. He’d love to see it back on the road.’
Mark has keys and log books for all the cars in his collection while a Cheshire-based specialist has already bought 11 Escort MkIII and MkIV projects. Mark is now looking for new owners for the remainder of his collection, the status of which he updates when a car is made available. See his Facebook group, Vehicle Collection Downsizing WA13.