Australian desert hoard
SEND US YOUR BARN FINDS – BEST ONE WINS £100
An estate sale in Alice Springs, Australia has revealed a collection of early Australian-made cars. Most notable were 11 Holden FXS, nicknamed ‘Humpies’ for their hunchbacked profile, and six examples of Leyland’s short-lived P76. There were also two World War Ii-era Jeeps, two early Sixties Ford Falcon coupés and two Falcon XK sedans, an R-series Chrysler Valiant and an S-series version, plus no fewer than 2600 numberplates.
Richard Macgowan wrote to tell us about it. ‘The cars were stored both outside and inside a number of sheds on an overgrown town block in a suburb of Alice Springs called Eastside,’ he said. ‘Their condition varied enormously between “original” and “rust holding it all together”.’
Bids varied between the respectable – just over AUS$30K (£17.5k) for a left-hand drive ’66 notchback Mustang 289 V8 in clean condition – to near-bargain status, such as the AUS$6150 (£3.5k) final bid for a wellpreserved P76 V8 sedan in eye-catching orange. Macgowan pointed out the cost of transport, which at AUS$1 per km would have made a 2500km retrieval to Australia’s East Coast somewhat discouraging to online bidders.