Star lot at Brightwells' £780,000 21 September auction was a Series 1 E-type Roadster that sold for £47,850. The roadster was one of three E-types to sell as the auction house successfully shifted 73% of the 102 lots on offer. The others, an S2 Roadster and a V12 Roadster, made £29k and £32k respectively.
Other Jaguars also fared well, a 1963 Mk2 3.4 topping £20k and a 1960 XK150 fixed-head making £20k, especially strong considering it was a left-to-right-hand-drive conversion that had spent years in storage.
Second top-seller, however, was a Mercedes-Benz 190SL with an unverified 13,000 miles on the odometer that sold for £46,200 to a bidder on the room after a fierce effort against an equally determined phone bidder.
The rise and rise of the "lesser" Aston GTs on the coat-tails of the DB5 continued when a very sharp looking 1968 Aston Martin DBS Vantage that had once been owned Stuart Hall of It’s a Knockout fame also performed strongly, soaring way past top estimate before falling to a Dutch enthusiast for £42,900.
There were some excellent results for more mainstream machinery, too, with a 1969 MGC Roadster making a mighty £22,000, a new auction record for the model, while a nicely mellowed 1949 MG TC fetched the predicted £18,350 and a pair of 1953 MG TDs also sold above estimate at £14,950 and £13,850 apiece.
The appetite for pre-war cars also remains fervent with a 1934 Bentley 3.5-Litre Hooper Sports Saloon restoration project making £23,100 and a rare 1938 Talbot 3-Litre Tourer, one of only four known survivors and an ex-Motor Show car, that is now winging its way to Holland for £31,350.
There were bargains, however: a 1932 Riley Gamecock that had recently had a £50,000 restoration looked good value at £29,750 while a fundamentally sound but somewhat neglected 1970 Rover P5B Coupé looked a snip at just £1350.
“Overall we were delighted with the results of the sale which shows that there are still plenty of buyers out there for the right cars,” said Brightwells' chief consultant James Dennison. “We were very happy with our 73% clearance rate.”
