Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to just go out and buy your own vintage racing team? Well, that’s exactly what happened at Bonhams London sale.
£5.5 million pounds for a pair of Jaguars and just under £1.8m for the transporter to go with them? Sounds like Christmas came early for one lucky US buyer.
The talk of the event was the opportunity presented by Dick Skipworth’s splendid Ecurie Escosse going under the hammer as a whole. This meant that cars like the 1956 Jaguar D-type were available for purchase alongside matching team cars from earlier and later years. A final figure of £2.55million marked the successful sale of this beauty.
Startling prices all ’round were achieved at the sale, which marked the first of Bonhams efforts at their new location. Of course it was to be the aforementioned D-Type and it’s matching C-type (pictured) that would gather the largest sums, with the ’52 C-type changing hands for a cool £2,913,500.
It may never have ducked beneath a chequered flag itself, yet all eyes were on this 1960 Commer TS3 transporter. The price reflected its attention-grabbing presence, with the TS3 being purchased for a whopping £1,793,500, reportedly by the same US-based individual who took home both the C and D-Types. The converted ’60 Commer can actually carry three cars in total, meaning that the new owner has the option to expand his fleet if the urge strikes at a later point.
It wasn’t all bad news for those shopping with less than 7 figures, this gorgeous 1951 Jaguar XK120 tipped £707k.
…as well as the slightly more modern 1959 Tojeiro-Jaguar, which saw £382,300.
Further down the money tree was the 1962/63 Tojeiro EE-Buick at £214k, whilst the 1960 Cooper Monaco (below) saw the gong for around £5k more.
A bit of relative bargain, if you don’t think about it too much!
Whilst it had been predicted that the C and D-type Jaguars would collect larger figures than that which eventuated, there were those from the collection which surprised punters, such as the £62k paid for the team’s tiny 1961 Austin-Healey Sprite.
Of course, it always comes back to the weirdest and most wonderful, with the the 1960 Commer stealing the show. The transporter is desirable and rare enough to have been featured in its own ten-minute television clip. To grasp a full appreciation for how special this rolling piece of history is, take a look at this video:
via motorsportretro
