MARKET NEWS: Defenders and P38s are the winners!
Auction sees Series and Range Rover Classic values tumble as bidders put their money on Defenders and second-gen Range Rovers
THESE are strange times we are living through, with lockdowns having a profound effect on the way we buy our cars. Online auctions have become very popular, for obvious reasons, but less obvious is the reason why prices are all over the place.
The latest Classic Cars Auction, on March 26, saw a lovely 80-inch lights-behind-grille Series I fetch just £23,865. It was estimated to make as much as £30,000.
It was the same story with what was for me the star of the show – the oldest Series II in existence. This 1958 model made £16,872 (estimate £18,000-22,000), but maybe its lack of originality let it down. This vehicle started life as a soft top in Bronze Green, but was later converted to a station wagon, and painted cream.
To add insult to injury, it was rebuilt on a galvanised chassis in 2011. It’s not very often you’ll find me moaning about galvanised chassis, but on this occasion it replaced Series II Chassis No2, which I’m sure most enthusiasts will agree was pretty much irreplaceable.
Classic Range Rovers didn’t fare that well, either. A very nice, rust-free 1974 Suffix 2, imported from New Zealand in 2015, didn’t make its reserve, while one of the finest Classics ever made, a 1991 ‘CSK’ special edition – one of just 200 made to celebrate the Range Rover’s 20th birthday – fetched a disappointing £31,080. This example, in gleaming Beluga Black, was restored between 2016 and 2019, which may well
have been its downfall. Original vehicles wearing a few battle scars and a hint of patina are fetching the best money at the moment.
But not all Range Rovers fared badly. As predicted in last month’s LRM Buying Guide, second-generation Range Rover P38s are the new classics – and this auction underlined our predictions. A 2002 4.6 Vogue SE in Alveston Red fetched a mighty £12,210, while a 2000 P38 4.6 Vogue in Oxford Blue made £7992. Not bad for examples of a model written off by some pundits years ago.
As expected, the biggest sellers were Defenders. A pretty ordinary 2012 Defender 110 TD XS with 39,245 miles fetched a whopping £33,855, which is pretty remarkable for a nine-year-old crew cab, even if it was wearing fancy Bowler wheels.
More to my taste was a 1998 Camel Trophy 110. This was a genuine Camel
participant from the final year of Land Rover’s involvement in this iconic event in the gruelling terrain of Tierra del Fuego, on the southernmost tip of South America. It was also the only year that the newly-launched Freelander was used as the competitors’ vehicles. But 300Tdi Defenders were used for the support vehicles – in this case supporting the Netherlands team of Rob Visser and Joost Standt.
In 2000 the vehicle was bought by the Kings School, Canterbury, as transport for the school’s rowing club, who used it for 13 years. Happily, they didn’t remove any of the event logos and stickers. Even the original bull bar, Warn winch, snorkel and roof rack were retained. For the last eight years it had been owned by a private collector. No wonder it fetched a very respectable £21,090.