Bonhams|Cars: How Provenance and Passion Drive Record Sales

The key to getting the best possible result to any sale is having as much information and provenance as possible, so a huge amount of work goes into putting every catalogue and lot together at Bonhams|Cars. We have a great team, with many of us coming from mechanical backgrounds with a deep understanding of the classic car world.

Sometimes items come to us organically, when somebody decides to sell and either calls a variety of auction houses to shop around, or simply calls Bonhams|Cars because of our reputation, history or a past experience with us. However, my favourite way of finding new sales is by being out and about, attending events and chatting to people in the car world. That creates a lot of leads and makes you accessible. You can’t just sit behind a desk and wait for the phone to ring. Also, we’re all car people, so being out on tours, rallies and vintage car shows talking to people and sharing that enthusiasm is what we like to do.

When we first get an enquiry there are a lot of steps to ensure we assess and value any car accurately. The first step would be receiving a selection of photos and a description of any accompanying paperwork. It starts with simple things like chassis number or race number, and then we can base our estimations on values achieved at auction worldwide. Auction results don’t lie, and the huge amount of factual data available always makes for a solid guide as to what a car is truly worth. Dealer asking prices are one thing, but they’re looking through the opposite end of the telescope to an auction house and their final sale prices often aren’t published. Dealers set their prices high and are prepared to negotiate downward, while auction houses begin with a lowest price, the reserve, and then work upwards.

If we receive a bread-and-butter (if they can be called that) classic car like a Jaguar E-Type Roadster, we know straight away an estimate of what it’s worth as there were plenty built, and they transact very regularly in the auction market. It’s when you get a very specific car with very specific history that it becomes a wonderful challenge, and that’s where our work comes in.

For example, if we have a car that raced at Le Mans in period that immediately brings an extra desirability and an extra layer of value if you can prove it beyond doubt. We would tap into our network of experts for additional opinions, plus work with historic photo libraries to compare the smallest details such as ‘did it have vents on that panel, are those lights and rivets still in the same place, which of these details can still be found on the car now..?’ It all adds up and helps to build the history. There’s nothing more fun than when you get a car with a proper history file that goes all the way back to year one, with invoices, service histories, race entries… that’s the ultimate.

Even then there can be no absolute guarantees when it comes to auctions, which always have a wonderful tendency to surprise.

“If you have a car that raced at Le Mans, that adds desirability and value, if you can prove it beyond doubt”

At this year’s Goodwood Revival we offered a 1948 Healey Elliott that had competed in the Mille Miglia driven by Count Giovanni Lurani. It is a fantastic story, but when estimating the car, we had to consider it is still a Healey Elliott, so was estimated at £60-£80,000, but it hammered at £175,000. That’s the sort of auction magic that can only happen in the moment.

Personally, I am a fan of screen-used cars that have appeared in film or TV. We sold the Mazda RX-7 from The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift and had it estimated at £250-350,000, yet multiple bidders wanted it and it rose to £800,000 at the hammer. The atmosphere during something like that is electric as a world record price is set.

Our most recent surprise came in our Downton Abbey sale when we offered the 1925 Sunbeam 20/60hp Saloon ‘Grantham Family’ car. The estimate was very conservative as we’ve seen a shift away from pre-war cars, however the bidding went wild and it sold for £172,000!

Moments like this are most likely to happen at the best-attended sales, which is why Bonhams|Cars holds sales at the biggest and best motoring events worldwide. Surprises, ultimately, cannot be relied upon, and can only be made possible when buyers have absolutely certainty of what they are bidding on, so having a comprehensive package of information, documentation and proven provenance is critical to set a car on its way to the best possible outcome.