The rarest of things . . . up for grabs
While classic Holdens are going for big money right now, early Japanese classics are earning some decent dollars too, such as this 1987 Toyota Corolla with close to 150,000km on the clock that just sold at auction in the United Kingdom for a recordbreaking $92,600.
Yep, that’s right, almost $100,000 for a Corolla.
To be fair, it is a rather special Corolla, though not because it is particularly rare or was owned by someone famous – it is, in fact, a one-owner, entirely original and unmodified AE86 Corolla GT.
Yes, it is that rarest of things – a sought-after Japanese sports car that is entirely unmodified, hasn’t been converted into a racing/ drifting car, and hasn’t been restored.
In fact, the closest it has come to a restoration is when it was repaired following a vicious keying that risked it being written off in 2006.
Yes, that is how far the values of these cars has risen in the past two decades – a car that was deemed uneconomic to repair after its paint was keyed just sold for close to
$100,000.
The 86 was sold on UK classic car website Car & Classic’s online auction platform, with its £46,250
(NZ$92,600) final bid setting a UK record, and handily eclipsing the United States record price of
$40,000 (NZ$57,540) set in March this year.
The GT was originally bought to cheer the owner up after separating from her partner, and was ordered new from a Toyota dealership in Cambridgeshire.
Originally costing her £12,500 in
1987, the now 92,000-mile (148,000km) GT was ordered without any factory fit extras, but the ‘‘generous standard specification’’ meant she could enjoy the sunroof, radio-cassette player and alloy wheels.
The 86 was ‘‘carefully serviced every year (at a Toyota dealer for the first nine), and was loved by its first and only owner’’.
In fact, she loved her 86 so much that when vandals ‘‘keyed’’ the paint in 2006 and it was deemed uneconomic to repair, the car was bought back from the insurers and repaired to an ‘‘as new’’ standard. Apparently she simply couldn’t contemplate her beloved car being unjustly sent to the crusher.
A recent injury that rendered the non-power steering car less than ideal as her daily driver had led her to reluctantly sell the car after 34 years (although the big return on investment may have played a part in the decision as well).
According to Car & Classic, the time-warp survivor (complete with a period Nokia phone cradle, Toyota mudflaps and dealer-badged registration plates), ‘‘underlines the continuing demand for original, usable modern classics from the 1980s and 90s’’.
‘‘We talk a lot about survivor cars, but this is the true definition of one,’’ said Chris Pollitt, head of editorial at Car & Classic.
‘‘So many of these ended up as drift or track cars or just rotting away. Only the true adoration of this 86 prevented the insurance company from obliterating it after incurring paint damage.
‘‘The frantic bidding in the dying minutes confirmed the demand for a car that is now rightly cast as a legend in its homeland.’’