Ideal pairs - Conclusion
The "Ideal Pairs" correspondence was so prolific that an extra session is required to conclude it. The first letter on this second pile of such letters is from a Retford…
Sold by Cord & Kruse, £205,310
If the ‘Captain America’ chopper used in Easy Rider isn’t the most famous motorcycle in movie history, what is? Two were built, but one was stolen and broken up. It is claimed this is the genuine survivor. It crashed at the end of the film after Peter Fonda’s Wyatt was shot by a redneck. Fonda gave the remains to actor Dan Haggerty of Grizzly Adams fame who commissioned restorer Gary Graham to rebuild it, but ended up giving it to him to settle a debt. Some believe an identical bike sold for £810,000 in 2014 is the real thing. Only Fonda and Haggerty really knew, both of whom are now dead.
Sold by RM Sotheby’s, £240,000
Another from the superb competition car collection of the late Irish enthusiast John Campion (who died in 2020), this was driven during the ’81 F1 season by Derek Daly and used in 1982’s Can-Am series.
Sold by Collectingcars.com, £7.5m
The 10-day sale of 38 cars from the Leonard Collection, including this 1987 M5 (£51,000), attracted 54,000 views, and 3.6 million are said to have watched the YouTube video that promoted it.
Sold by The Market, £45,250
This MGA was bought new to contest the 1960 Monte-Carlo Rally (it finished 130th). It was later returned to standard road guise, but restored to Monte spec on discovery of its interesting history.
Sold by Bonhams, £109,391
This special edition Vantage is being sold to raise funds for wildlife conservation through charity initiative Auction4Wildlife. It was one of 60 made to honour the DBR9 Le Mans GT1 wins of 2007-08.
Sold by Historics, £2,576
A bargain – and not just any Camaro but a hot Z28 version with a small block V8 and six-speed manual transmission. It is said to be blue beneath the razzle-dazzle camo wrap.
Sold by Bonhams, £201,662
This rare and quick Jaguar-powered special, one of 11 built by Atalanta Motors of Staines, sold for below its estimate. It went to the US in the 1970s and had lately been on static display.
Sold by H&H, £11,812
One of just 115 Elan Plus 2 130S/5 special editions made to commemorate Lotus achieving 50 grand prix wins. The 130S/5 references the model’s 130bhp and five-speed gearbox.