Classic Cars, Motorcycles & Automobilia

Lyon & Turnbull notes that while mascots made no functional contribution to a car, they “certainly added style, and generally have fared better over time than the cars to which they were mounted”.

While classic, vintage and antique cars have a sizeable collecting market, the wider worlds of automobilia and petroliana also attract dedicated enthusiasts with plenty of auctions featuring a variety of lots.

Charterhouse (25% buyer’s premium) has been holding auctions of classic cars, motorcycles and automobilia for nearly 20 years.

Pedal cars are regular visitors to salerooms but rarer powered versions were also produced for children to use, partly for road safety training

A collection of vintage cars that have been stored in untouched condition in the cave of a wine grower/collector are coming up for auction at Ivoire Nîmes in southern France on November 16.

This Ford Escort once owned by Diana, Princess of Wales, has been bought by a museum in Chile.

Petrol-themed enamel signs do not get much better than that made to promote British Dominions Empire Motor Insurance in c.1912.

Every collector of glass petrol pump globes – or lenses as they are known in the US – hopes to own examples by the classic big brands: BP, Shell, Esso and the like.

Richard Edmonds (20% buyer’s premium) in Chippenham, Wiltshire, has sold some very rare British petrol pump globes in the past year – including a globe for the little-known brand Dominion (£13,000 in November).

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

According to patent documents dated February 1928, Woodlite headlamps invented by a William G Woods of Los Angeles were said to give the driver better illumination of distant objects ahead.

Bringing the highest price yet at one of Richard Edmonds’ (20% buyer’s premium) specialist Petroliana and Automobilia sales in Chippenham was a rare petrol pump globe.

The Old Bill motorcar mascot was a popular item during and after the Great War.

A 1935 oil on canvas of a Bugatti and Alfa Romeo speeding along a track is offered for £1550 during English and Continental Antique’s next 'Wings and Wheels' exhibition.