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Records Smashed At SWVA Classic Auction!

By November 4, 2014 No Comments

The record books were torn up at South Western Vehicle Auctions autumn classic car sale when a 1951 Jaguar XK120 Roadster sold for £80,560 – more than double the previous highest price paid at the Poole auction house.

Bidding started at £65,000 and quickly reached the successful offer of £76,000 (before commission) which helped the total sale raise in excess of £430,000 – another record – with only six of the 50 lots failing to find a new home.

Among these was a showroom condition 1962 Mercedes 190SL Roadster that had been expected to be the star lot. It attracted the highest on the floor bid of the day, £80,000 (before commission), but fell just short of its reserve and failed to sell.

The packed and diverse sale started with a real barn find, a 1949 Lea Francis 1.7 litre two-seater sportscar one of only 118 of the model ever produced and one of only two to feature independent front suspension and hydraulic brakes.

Starting at £11,000 the offers quickly rose with two determined bidders battling each other and taking the final sale price to £23,320. The successful bidder, from Ferndown, turning out to be the owner of the only other version of this vehicle. He had restored that one from a box of parts.

After the XK120 the next highest price was the £33,125 paid for a 1967 Mercedes 250SL. Other SLs in the sale also did well, a 1998 SL60 AMG automatic (one of only 50 right hand drive examples) surprised many by going for £27,030 – double its catalogue estimate –  while a 1983 280SL auto fetched £16,165 which was again well over the guide price and a 2004 500SL went to a bidder in South Africa for £4,134.

Throughout the auction there was fierce competition both in the hall as well as on the telephone and internet and it was an on-line bidder from Germany who snapped up one of the other highlights of the day – a 5 litre 1997 Ford GT40 replica track car which sold for £31,800.

Elsewhere a 1932 Austin Seven De Luxe 749cc saloon with just 28,799 recorded miles but in need of extensive restoration didn’t come cheap at £6,095 and a rare 1949 Armstrong Siddeley Typhoon registered in Ireland went for £9,540 which was bang on the estimate.

Other notable lots included: a 1959 Daimler SP 250 V8 (£20,548), a 1951 MG TD (£18,550), an Austin Seven special (£7,738), an original condition split-screen Morris Minor from 1957 (£3,127) and a 1953 David Brown Cropmaster tractor (£3,286).

Click here for the full results.