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1980s built Jaguar D Type ‘Historic Racer’ with some period parts fetched £799,000 to lead Bonhams £11.34m sale results at Goodwood Revival

1956 replicating, 1980s assembled, DVLA registered, front of auction rostrum parked, D Type Jaguar with genuine engine block and front wishbones, and correct disc brakes, had been a Goodwood, Spa, Le Mans Legends support race and Mille Miglia Retrospective participant in the hands of Valentine Lindsay.
Pre-sale estimated to sell for £900,000-1,200,000, a top bid of £700,000 was accepted and a new-owner driver paid £799,000 including buyer’s premium.
By Saturday 18 September afternoon sale end, 63 or 77% of the 82 vendors’ cars displayed inside and outside the Bonhams auction tent had sold for £10,719,371 with premium and an average of £170,143 had been spent by buyers per car bought.
All 24 cars from the Stan West Collection sold out led by the late motor factor’s P&A Wood restored and maintained 1955 Bentley R Type Continental Fastback by H J Mulliner selling for a within forecast band £642,200.
The former GSF Car Parts supremo's Earls Court Motor Show exhibited and Carrozzeria Zagato bodied 1960 Bristol 406, again pro-restored, made a more than estimated £200,000 with charges.
Pre-WW2 Bentleys certainly proved fashionable again with the Goodwood crowd. For a double lower estimate £603,000 with premium was forthcoming for a ‘No Reserve’ 1931-dated and 2015-2017 built Special, consisting of shortened 4-Litre chassis, front axle, rear axle, differential, suspension and brakes with 8-Litre capacity engine and D-type box, topped with open two-seater body and evented at Silverstone and Goodwood.
Whereas another 1930 Bentley, formerly a 6½-Litre Barker-bodied Saloon, had been rebuilt with shortened chassis to 11ft wheelbase to replicate a works Le Mans Team Car. With many original works items and accurate Vanden Plas Long Door style coachwork for four, it was only completed just over a year ago and was bought for £501,400, nearly £100,000 below estimate.
On one side of the front of rostrum parked D Type was a truly unrepeatable 1971 Iso Grifo S2 Coupe, one of only three right-hand drive 7-Litre cars that had factory-fitted Can Am 7.4 390bhp engine, 5-speed box and dual Targa-top.
Extraordinarily well preserved by being dry-parked in a West Country garage since 1974, the one elderly gentleman owned from new Grifo, which he collected from the factory and had only driven a mere 20,873 miles, was the most viewed lot in the sale and explains why the £200,000-250,000 guided 50 year old Italian cost a second owner £345,000.
On the right of the rostrum, the seventh of only 353 Pininfarina Coupes built in 1958 on the Ferrari 250GT chassis, with wheel-arches uniquely flared and boot lid unusually in grp. Resident in Italy, the US and Switzerland before recent restoration in Nero Tropicale with Tan leather, it sold in West Sussex for a below estimate £331,200.
An only 400 miles from new and Don Law mechanically overhauled Jaguar XJ220 Coupe with refreshed Monza Red paint and Sand leather trim was dispatched to Germany August 1993, but never road registered.
Consigned from second ownership, the supercar was knocked down to the third owner for £460,000. After several corrections in achieved prices in public for the XJ220, this was a new world record price for the model.
The still matching numbers 1937 SS100 Jaguar 2½-Littre Roadster sold for £368,000 had been fully restored and fitted with a 5-speed synchromesh gearbox during Davenport Cars restoration.
Whilst a 4-wheel drive 1971 Jensen FF Mk1 with working 8-track stereo, which had come to market from single family ownership having been restored ten years ago, also made the £110,000 forecast.
An estimated £149,500 was forthcoming for a 1993-restored 1958 AC-engined Ace from the Stan West Collection and a previously rebuilt 1960 Aceca Coupe with desirable Bristol motor fed by an electric pump and overdrive option fetched £80,500, top estimate money.
The Repco Brabham-Climax BT3/4 Prototype Single-Seater driven at the 1962 Australian GP at Perth by Sir Jack Brabham and by Graham Hill in the 1964 Tasman Series Tasman Series had been treated to a two year restoration by Hawker Racing, but failed to find a new owner-driver with the necessary £300,000 or more among the many Revival drivers who came to the tent during the weekend.
There were buyers however for two out of four ‘Fox & Nicholl’ and ‘Syndicate’ campaigned 2-Litre Lagondas with consecutive ‘PK’ registrations ‘9201’, ‘9202’, ’9203’ and ‘9204’ from the Forshaw Collection. The 1929 Le Mans 24 Hour Tim Rose Richards/Honorable Brian Lewis raced ‘PK 9203’ Low-Chassis Tourer fetched a less than forecast £230,000 after the gavel had cooled.
Whereas the Rose-Richards/Cecil Randall ‘PK 9201’ registered sister car sold to Captain Forshaw for £2,000 in 1973 was hammered for a below estimate £178,250. There is also post-sale interest in the two unsold 'PK' reg Lagondas.
The Lotus Type 14 Elite-Climax S1 first owned by Team Lotus driver Innes Ireland as part of his engagement fee in 1960 presented well on the auction tent carpet following a recent Hawker Racing restoration.
Subsequently part-exchanged by the Scot for a hot Mini from privateer Tom Threlfall, who upgraded and raced Elite 1182 to a second in class at Snetterton, third in class at both the Brussells GP meeting and at Spa, before finishing strongly in the 1962 RAC Tourist Trophy GT World Championship qualifier at Goodwood, where it was surely well bought for £97,750.
The 55th Cooper and the first MkV F3 Monoposto built by John Cooper in 1950 with 500cc Alfin-barrelled JAP engine coupled to a Norton ‘Dolls Head’ gearbox, a Goodwood Revival competitor in 2019, cost the next intrepid owner a very reasonable £26,450.
Commenting on the first Bonhams Goodwood Revival Sale in two years, Tim Schofield, Head of Department, Bonhams Motor Cars UK, told C.A.R.:“This was an excellent result, and we are thrilled to have set yet another auction world record with the sale of the XJ220.
“We are also especially pleased to have achieved a white glove sale for the Stan West collection. Stan was a great friend to Bonhams, and we were proud to have been entrusted to handle this collection, which reflected his passion and enthusiasm for the finest British marques.”
Preceding the motor cars sale was the always entertaining automobilia session, led this year by the sale of UK vehicle registration number ‘8 X’, which sold for £197,800, exceeding its pre-sale top estimate of £120,000!
With the imminent release of the new James Bond film No Time to Die, 007-fever had clearly swept the Bonhams sale room, when a 1970 UK tax disc issued to the original ‘Goldfinger’ Aston Martin DB5, used by Pinewood Studios in the James Bond film, sold for a staggering £25,250, more than 10 times its pre-sale estimate, following a two-way bidding war in the tented saleroom on the Goodwood Motor Circuit campus.
Having crunched many numbers, 21% of cars sold were auctioned ‘Without Reserve’ and another 24% made within pre-sale estimate band prices compared to 41% for which below estimate sums were accepted. 14% of cars sold though did so for more than their top estimates.
In summary, while current market makers in tent, by phone or on-line have bought 63 well promoted motor cars (so far), they were not prepared to meet vendors reserves for 19 other vehicles at this very well dressed auction facility at what continues to be one of the major ‘must-attend’ events on the collector car calendar.
The £11,337,371 spent on a Saturday afternoon on cars, memorabilia and that registration really was most encouraging for all stakeholders.
The much travelled Bonhams Motor Car department meanwhile will be heading to the USA for its next sale, the debut Newport Concours Auction taking place October 1 in Rhode Island, followed by The Zoute Sale a week later (10 October) in Knokke-Heist, Belgium. RH-E

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