Octane, Issue 75, September 2009
How many years’ experience have you? I’d been a car specialist at auction houses for 15 years. James is a ‘professional’ navigator on rallies and we realised that we knew an awful lot of people from
the collectors’ car scene.
Against all odds, people are still buying cars... any ‘buts’? Everyone told us it was the wrong time to go solo. We believed the opposite.
The weakness of the pound and low interest rates mean we’re getting most of our enquiries from Europe while, over here, people realise
that it’s better to turn their money into tangible assets.
How much are prices down? I don’t think that prices have dropped and a number of important cars have increased
in value. Average cars tend to struggle but they always have done.
Any ‘recent successes’ or ‘ones that got away? In the former category, a in60 AC Ace that had been in store since 1973 and was
in absolutely time-warp condition. In the latter, a 1928 Bugatti that the owner
had second thoughts about selling.
Anything else? The biggest problem for us is that some long-term owners have over-optimistic
ideas about the value of their cars.
