Innholdsfortegnelse for 21/04/2021 i Classic Car Buyer

We achieved something of a family milestone this week. Not a wedding, christening, graduation or anything like that but something equally important in life’s journey: the first father-and-son scrapyard trip – and to an old-fashioned take-it-off-yourself place too, of the kind which barely exist today. I mentioned in our Staff Classics pages recently how my son had done the necessary maths to prove (at least to his own satisfaction) that an E46 BMW was a viable first car and so with the vehicle in the garage we set about the usual tidying up of the details you tend to perform on any new acquisition. Needing a few trim pieces, plastic clips and other details, a breaker’s yard was suggested and a quick Google showed that the local yard where I…

A brand new motorsport festival is set to take place in Yorkshire on June 25-27, with a spectacular closed-road hillclimb taking centre stage. The Yorkshire Motorsport Festival is set to take place over three days in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. It was originally due to debut in 2020, but will now take place this summer having been given the green light by the local council. At its centre will be the Wolfstone Hillclimb – reckoned to be the first-ever hillclimb to be held on closed public roads in the county since the Road Traffic Act was amended in 2017. The hillclimb will be fought over 0.8 miles of closed roads by a line-up of over 80 pre-1986 cars. Other live action will include car stunts, Formula One demos, driver simulators and…

So-called smart motorways make drivers feel less safe and cause mayhem for emergency services trying to reach injured motorists, new findings have revealed. This year marks the 15th anniversary of Britain’s first ‘smart motorway’ on a section of the M42; an example of a dynamic smart motorway where the hard shoulder is opened to traffic during busy periods. However, most (and potentially all from 2025) are now all-lane-running (ALR) motorways, with no hard shoulder at all. As they have proliferated in recent years to account for more than 350 miles of motorway, so has the controversy surrounding them. A dossier of Highways England files obtained under a Freedom of Information Act by The Telegraph shows the difficulties created by removing easy access to crash scenes. They document attempts to reach…

As we went to press, the catalogue was still growing for Anglia’s May sale and it promises to be the usual fascinating mixture. As soon as we opened the catalogue the first few lots caught our attention, specifically a ’79 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV which must be one of the very few surviving right-hand drive examples and estimated accordingly at £9000-£11,000. Similar money buys you the GTV’s contemporary competition in the shape of a 1981 E21 BMW 323i, while a BMW with one wheel less in the shape of a Brighton-built Isetta is valued rather higher at £35,000-£45,000. More exotic Bavarian fare includes the E30 M3 Cecotto edition which is estimated at a conservative £45,000-£55,000 but which may well soar higher. Those priced out of the E30 may well be…

BUYING ONE Another thing in the GT’s favour is that, for all the rising values over recent years, it’s still one of the bargains of the classic car world. Late-model rubber-bumper GTs with their plastic dashboards and deck chair fabric seats are still at the bottom of the MGB pile price-wise. You can get perfectly useable examples for £2000 or so, and a very good one for £5000. Even Mk3s from the 1969-1974 period, with chrome bumpers and everything, aren’t worth much more despite being essentially identical to the earlier Mk1 and Mk2 versions and, if anything, having superior build quality over later cars and stronger mechanical parts than earlier ones. This especially goes for the relatively undesirable ’69-’73 ones with the inset grille, which go for very little more…

Car insurance is at its cheapest rate for seven years due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to research conducted by Money Supermarket. The average cost of fully comprehensive insurance in the UK during the first quarter of 2021 fell by £73.32 to £417.06 – a drop of 15 per cent and the biggest quarter-on-quarter reduction on record. The firm concluded that drivers covering fewer miles led to increased competition among insurers for sales, causing them to offer lower premiums to entice new business. Fewer claims during this period has also meant greater profits for providers, with the benefit passed on to customers. However, Money Supermarket’s Andy Teasdale warned that the bubble will likely burst at some point as lockdown eases and driving – as well as accidents and claims –…

HONDA CIVIC (1972-1979) The Japanese had already made inroads to Western markets by the 1970s, but the Honda Civic touched on a few crucial points that would mark it out as special. A thoroughly modern design, it was designed in the mould of and directly in competition with European rivals, and was also perfectly timed to capitalise on the trend for economical cars. At just over £1150 when new, it wasn’t necessarily cheap in the UK but still sold pretty well, if not quite as dramatically as it did in the US. Residuals were initially disappointing, but as Honda’s (and Japan’s) reputation for quality grew, they began to improve, even bettering Ford and Vauxhall by the late 1980s. But this was too late for the Mk1 Civic, and so it…

In many ways, the R107 is the SL. Built for nearly 20 years, it was timeless in its own time, and has unsurprisingly become a ready-made classic. That it’s supremely talented was assured by its standing at the top of the Mercedes-Benz range during what many now consider to be the marque’s golden age. Underneath the great engineering and design, there’s excellent comfort, reliability, practicality, and altogether a real sense of occasion. It is, simply, a car that many owners buy and keep without ever looking back. The example is here is surely one of the nicest out there. A late car with the sweet 3-litre M103 straight-six and four-speed automatic gearbox, it’s also finished in the classic combination of silver over a blue interior, with a blue fabric hood…

Values for homologation specials from the 1980s and ’90s are up significantly since the beginning of lockdown last year, according to the latest update to UK Hagerty Price Guide. Reportedly, homologation specials are in great demand amongst a 45-65-year-old audience, and this has translated into rising prices. The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is one such rising star, adding an average of £20,200 to its value over the year, with both Bonhams and Silverstone Auctions recently valuing examples for £75,000. Meanwhile, the Audi Quattro Sport – that’s the shortened Group B homologation special one – had a value of £265,000 a year ago. Today, that’s £284,000 and the very top, concours examples are valued at up to a whopping £404,000. Another riser is the iconic Lancia Delta HF Integrale. Rewind to…

The Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs’ annual Drive-It-Day takes place this Sunday (April 25), leading to much speculation from enthusiasts as to what can and cannot proceed during these difficult times. A fortnight ago, we reported that it would be a back-to-basics affair based around local journeys and essential trips, but the government has since opened the doors for events to take place depending on your location. Each devolved nation has provided its own bespoke guidance throughout the pandemic, meaning different rules apply in different countries. In England, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has confirmed, through the Tourism Alliance, that at Step 2 of the road map for exit from lockdown applicable from April 12, an event such as the Federation’s Drive-It-Day may go ahead. However,…

Bentley is to use the most extreme road car-based creation in its 101-year history to spearhead its research into synthetic fuels. The fearsome Continental GT3 Pikes Peak, designed and built to compete for the Time Attack 1 record at this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, will be the first competition Bentley to run on renewable fuel ahead of a goal to offer such fuels to customers. The Continental uses a variation of the road car’s twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre petrol V8, and will power its way through the 12.42-mile course running on a biofuel-based gasoline. Various blends of fuels are currently being tested and evaluated, with possible greenhouse gas reductions of up to 85 per cent over standard fossil fuel. Bentley says it’s the first step in a longer programme to…

Hobbs Parker’s first classic car and motorcycle auction of 2021 will be a timed online affair, beginning at 12pm on Wednesday April 28 with the first lots ending 24 hours later. Bidding will take place online and via commission bids, with viewing available from April 26 until the end of the auction. Over 150 lots are expected, with the catalogue already displaying plenty of variety as it ranges from a 1937 Morris C-Type Tipper through to a wide selection of post-2000 entries. German classics feature very strongly, with no fewer than 14 Mercedes consigned as we went to press, including a 1991 560SEC and a 1966 W110 ‘Fintail’ in 230 guise. BMW will also be well represented, with a low-mileage E21 320 Auto and four Cabriolets amongst the eight 3-Series…

C126 SEC (1979-1991) The C126 was the first proper S-Class coupe since the instant-classic W111 series that ended production eight years earlier, in 1971. That gap seems to have served only to cement the W111’s position as a classic while leaving the C126 appearing too modern and disparate from the traditional Mercedes-Benz set. But times are changing and C126 values are approaching where the W111 was in its early years of vogue. Like the recent rush for V8 W111s, it’s been the most powerful examples of the C126 that have led the market over the last decade, but in the last two or three years there’s been a rise of the rest. After a period in the early 2000s when the cheapest C126s were as low as £1000, the premium…

As we say goodbye to the longest-serving consort in British royal history, it seems appropriate to remember Prince Philip’s influence on the car industry. It was during a visit to Longbridge that his unflattering comments on the BMC range of the ’50s allegedly stung Leonard Lord sufficiently to engage Pininfarina to restyle the entire range. Here we see the Duke of Edinburgh at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port factory in February 1985, where he chats to a worker at an inspection point. The cars in shot are the Mk2 Astra, for which Ellesmere Port received a £65m investment and which that year would take the Car of The Year trophy. Sadly, it appears that this was one of the few occasions where Philip didn’t utter one of his hilarious but so often…