BIDDING WAR FOR JOHN GOSS PROTOTYPE FALCON
A GOLD Coast auction house estimates a classic race car designed by motorsport champion John Goss will hit $300,000 in a bidding war.
Car enthusiasts flocked to the city from all over the country as Lloyds Auctions at Carrara put hundreds of classic cars on the chopping block at the weekend.
Lead auctioneer Bill Freeman said Mr Goss’s 1975 prototype Ford XB Falcon hardtop hit $205,000 – not quite its reserve – but negotiations with three interested parties were ongoing.
“It could actually sell for as much as $300,000,” he said.
“We have bidders who are still going for it (privately).
“Usually it’s family people that we see at these auctions buying cars that really mean something to them or that they’ve watched at Bathurst.”
The car was built in 2013 and based on original prototypes by Goss himself.
Gold Coaster Darren Tongue who co-built the car over a period of three years said it was a wishlist of everything Goss wanted in a car for the 1975-76 seasons after his 1974 Bathurst win.
“The hardest part was trying to remember how they built cars back then,” he said. “Nowadays cars are held together with glue. This is held together with nuts and bolts.”
Mr Freeman said the Gold Coast had become Australia’s capital for classic cars, with two or three auctions every month and more than one million bids online each week.
“We usually have 10 or 20 thousand people bidding online during these auctions and hundreds of thousands watching the live streams,” he said. “But there’s still a great atmosphere here on auction day, it’s like a carnival.”
Car enthusiasts Tony Cordin and Tricia Griffin travelled from Byron Bay to check out the cars on offer – including a 1963 Ford Falcon Futura.
“We might bid on a couple, we’re pretty avid car people,” Ms Griffin said.
“The race cars are pretty amazing ... if I had the money I’d definitely put a bid on.”