Motoring

Alan Judd

It’s the awareness of possibility that makes auctions so exciting. Add the tension of competition and the sense of common purpose – unity in diversity – and you have the reasons why bidders sometimes do silly or inspired things. In 1915 a Mr Chubb went to auction to buy a set of dining chairs for his wife, but found himself bidding £6,600 for Lot 15. He bought Stonehenge. It’s nice to imagine the conversation when he got home.

Car auctions are different. The only prehistorics are ancient cars and most bidders are middle-aged men intent on business and not betraying their emotions. The usual advice for buying in this way is that you should study your market by observing a few auctions without bidding, thereby acquiring a good idea of values, house rules and appropriate behaviour. Have a fixed price in mind beyond which you will not go; however unmissable the current lot seems, there’ll be another. Don’t forget buyer’s premium, often around ten per cent plus VAT, and don’t be tempted by something you don’t really want just because it’s cheap (ask yourself why no one else wants it). Nor should you assume that if a car doesn’t make its reserve you can’t buy it. If your offer is reasonably close, the auctioneers, whose interest is selling, will negotiate with the buyer. I bought my first house like that.

Don’t forget, too, that the fall of the hammer is your contract to buy. This gives clarity to buyer and seller with no shilly-shallying and no changing your mind. If you’re bidding against dealers you’ll have to go a little over trade price to get your car but it will probably still be less than on the open market. However, there’s no come-back if it turns out not to be as good as you thought, as there would be if you bought from a dealer. It’s sold as seen – caveat emptor – so go early, inspect carefully and ask to see its history.

I recently attended a classic car auction by Brightwells of Leominster, an established out-of-town house with a growing reputation. The apple of my eye was a two-tone blue 1950 Bentley Mark VI, estimated at £25,500–£28,500. That’s high for a Mk VI although it was an unusually good example, restored, with plenty of history. Highest bid was £20,000, which seemed about right since at any one time there are probably only a dozen or so people in the country actively looking for one of these, but it failed to sell. My limit was so low I never raised my hand.

Most cars were within or – this being the back end of the year – a little below estimates but a beautiful 1963 Bentley S3, ex-barclay Brothers, went £4,500 over estimate at £46,500 and a charming 1955 Fiat Topolino went £2,000 over at £14,000. I was tempted by a clean and well maintained 1988 Saab 900 – surely a future classic – which sold as a runabout for £1,300, but didn’t bid because I already have two runabouts. Naturally, I soon regretted such fallacious reasoning – if two, why not three?

You occasionally see cars advertised in such terms as ‘complete but for gearbox’ or ‘needs only engine to complete’. Well, Lot 98 needed engine, gearbox, wheels, axles, seats, windows, dashboard, brakes and everything else – and still made £21,500. That’s because it was the bodyshell of a 1962 E-type Jaguar belonging to the late Princess Nina Aga Khan, a beautiful model, born Nina Sheila Dyer, who married wealthily but not happily and committed suicide in 1965. Provenance is all if it’s special, so before you dismiss the next old banger, read the paperwork. You might get lucky.