Classic values & essential buying advice
FANCY A PUNT?
The legal principle of caveat emptor (beware, buyer) is rarely more important than when buying classics at auction. Whereas private sellers might be expected to know something about a classic they’ve chosen to own, auction houses cannot know everything about everything.
This was brought to mind recently when I looked at a ‘fully restored’ example of a ‘Series II’ 1952 Morris Minor Convertible in an auction catalogue. I’ll spare their blushes (and legal team) and focus on those inverted commas and other matters.
I quickly spotted from the engine picture and gear lever position that this car had been upgraded with a later 1098cc running gear. All well and good, but not mentioned in the listing. The bulkhead also appeared to have been painted over with stonechip, which was neither original nor nice, but more importantly the BMC chassis plate was missing. There was just a simple strip of aluminium stamped with the chassis number riveted to the wrong side of the bulkhead. I’m sure it matches the reg doc, but the number (and date of registration) makes this a late Series MM Minor. Muddier by the minute.
I will say that the work on the rest of the car looked good and it presented well. Without the above revelations it was probably worth the £13k lower end of its bold estimate. But not with them. So, I was pleased to see some caveat from the emptor, and perhaps realism from the seller, when it was bought for £11,760. I hope the buyer knows what they have.
Russ Smith has been following the classic car market for more than two decades and contributes to Practical Classics, Classic Car Weekly and Classic Cars.
REVIEW
It's a mixed-up market alright
What looked like a good catalogue of 103 cars produced a fairly disappointing result for Historics at the London Classic Car Show. It only got to a below average sale rate of 57.3 per cent after much hard graft on post-sale deals.
The ‘right stuff’ still made good money, but there were still some good buys and we’ll start with the 1953 Ford Consul MkI estate. A real rarity, bodied by Abbots of Farnham, the last owner bought it from JLR Heritage who’d displayed it at Gaydon. It has since been properly recommissioned. We expected it to hit the high end of its £13-19k estimate, but £13,867 was enough to secure it.
The best TR3As might be £30k+, but you can get a very presentable one to enjoy yourself in for much less than half that. It might have glassfibre rear wings and a bit of honest patina like this one, but how much does that re
