Top Cars All Sell In £1.5 Million Sale At Syon Park, London
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LONDON - May 26, 2006: Heavy rain didn't deter the spirits of those attending Wednesday's H&H classic car auction at Syon Park, London and all the top cars sold in a sale that grossed some £1.5 million. The headline 1929 Duesenberg Model J Convertible Coupe dominated the sale marquee – a car of massive proportions and presence. As expected, it will now return to its native America and, considering today’s draconian dollar exchange rate, did well to realise £330,000.
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The equally stunning 1935 Mercedes-Benz 500K Kombination Roadster, originally the property of WWII fighter ace William Henry Rhodes-Moorhouse, was bang on the money at £285,000. Likewise the fine looking and eminently usable 1930 Bugatti Type 44 Drophead Coupe that found a new home for a whisker under £80,000.
With AC Cobras now fetching stratospheric prices, this iconic car’s relations are all gaining value and the tidy 1957 Bristol-engined Ace on offer finally sold over estimate for £77,400. Its very pretty cousin, the Coupe-bodied 1954 Bristol-engined Aceca – once the property of former World Land and Water Speed record holder Donald Campbell – was knocked down for just over £37,000. The 1963 AC Greyhound made just under £18,000.
Competition cars are always an unknown quantity at auction, and that was certainly true of the ‘barn find’ 1959/1960 Cooper Chevrolet, about which very little is known. Nevertheless, the fact that it is still a car of historic significance is in no doubt and it eventually fetched over estimate at in excess of £25,000.
Many other lots exceeded their estimates, including: the supremely elegant 1936 Rolls-Royce Phantom III Sports Saloon (£42,500); the 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud (£16,125) and a pristine 1960 Triumph TR3A (£14,000).
Barnato/Birkin Le Mans Trophy fetches treble its estimate
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The hallmarked silver trophy presented to Woolf Barnato and Sir Henry Birkin for winning the 1929 Le Mans 24-hour race exceeded all expectations when it was knocked down for £9,280 – some three times its estimate. A run of bound copies of Autocar and Motor magazines did well, as did many of the historical photographs on offer.
The next H&H motorcycle and bicycle sale is at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham on June 24/25 and the next car sale will take place at Buxton, Derbyshire on July 25/26.