Classic Cars, Motorcycles & Automobilia

What could be more rock ‘n’ roll than roaring around your own extensive estate on a motorbike, helter skelter? The H&H Classics saleroom is offering one such machine.

Fancy owning one of the earliest vehicles on the road and racing it down to Brighton? Now’s your chance as more than 20 vintage cars, many restored and fit to compete in the 120-year old veteran run, are to be sold in early November.

A car owned by the winner of the first ever British Touring Car Championship back in 1958 was the highlight of Bonhams’ Goodwood Revival sale at the weekend, taking double its estimate.

Auction house Bonhams has a montage of motoring memorabilia and famous classic cars on the block today to coincide with the three-day festival at Goodwood Circuit in west Sussex.

The value of musical instruments outpaced the investment in classic cars and fine art last year, according to a survey by a private bank.

Californian agriculturalist Lindley Bothwell (1901-86) made a fortune growing oranges in the San Fernando Valley and devoted much of his prosperity to classic cars.

A 1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur I used in the past by Princess Diana is included in Auctions America’s upcoming sale in Auburn, Indiana (August 31-September 3).

Aston Martins are associated with glamour and glitz. The car of James Bond. But the example coming up in a classic car auction in Essex on May 7 is more muck than mystique.

At first glance, a hammer price of £23,000 is a heck of a lot to pay for a vehicle distinguished only by a heavily rusted shell with headlights, bumper and assorted bits and pieces lying around forlornly.

A 1965 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III DHC ‘Chinese Eye’ with a musical pedigree comes under the hammer at H&H Classics next week.

A 1936 Lagonda Rapier barn find will be among the lots at the Bonhams sale of the new Lord Harlech’s family collection.

“Non-runners but ripe for restoration” is how Cheshire auction house Peter Wilson describes three 1930s cars found in a garden. It also sums up what fans of classic car ‘barn finds’ are after.

Sheffield Auction Gallery uses the rather euphemistic term ‘weathered patina’ when describing the condition of a Rolls-Royce it has estimated at £1000-1200 in its February 24 sale.

“I am not a number, I am a free man,” was the cry of Patrick McGoohan in TV series The Prisoner. The important number at the Charterhouse auction house on February 12 is £20,000-25,000 - the estimate for a 1963 Lotus Super Seven S2, the model made famous by appearing in that 1960s cult favourite show.