Local Broughs hit the jackpot in UK

To the uninitiated, it may have looked like a pile of old junk, but buyers at the Bonhams Stafford in England auction on October 18 definitely thought otherwise. The estate of the late Gary Ross who died in Sydney last year, included a partly assembled 1927 Brough Superior SS100 Alpine Grand Sport and a 1926 SS100, brought £259,100 and £236,700 respectively including buyer’s premium, against estimates of £120,000 to £160,000 for each. The SS100s plus parts of other Brough models were consigned to the UK auctioneer by his widow, Elaine. Gary Ross had spent much of his life collecting parts for Broughs with the intention of restoring them, but unfortunately passed away at 69 before he could achieve this. Bonhams says only around 380 Brough Superior SS100s were built between 1924 and 1940, when production ended. The Ross collection raised a total of £635,000 (approx. A$1,380,000) including buyer’s premium. Elaine Ross told Bonhams’ Ben Walker, who flew out from England to inspect the parts, that they had sat in boxes in their lounge room with the television set on top. “These bikes were more precious to him than life itself,” she said. “Those bikes were never about money. We didn’t have a lot of money. If he had sold them life would have been more comfortable for us but that wasn’t what life was about.”