Customer Service Lines Open Mon-Fri 9am-6pm
Closed Saturday & Sunday & Bank Holidays
Britain's biggest privately owned collection of classic cars, which spans over 80 years of motoring history and includes Lord Mountbattern's Mini Traveller and Winston Churchill's Austin is for sale and will go to the highest bidder.
The collection has a £100,000,000 reserve price and currently belongs to Dr James Hull, who made his fortune as the founder of a series of dentistry practices, who began collecting the vehicles 35 years ago. The classic car industry in the United Kingdom is worth £4.3,000,000,000 and has witnessed a business surge over the last few years, with British Marques like Aston Martin, Jaguar, Bentley, Austin and Alvis attracting investors and devotees.
Why is this tremendous collection going on sale ?
The total amount of money made of all of the classic cars that were sold by the RM Group, one of the biggest classic car auctioneers in the world, last year was £260,000,000. In the United Kingdom, classic vehicles are exempt from capital gains tax and also for models that were produced before 1974 are also exempt from vehicle excise duty.
Dr Hull's collection, which he has put up for sale unfortunately due to health problems, will be sold through a private bidding process, completely in tact. It also includes 365 replica miniature pedal cars along with industry memorabilia.
Dr Hill said in a recent report that there is a lot of interest both from associations and individual bidders. He went on to say that the sudden rise in classic car values is both incredible and not known before, though he believes that it is due. He went on to say that bids have came in from investors overseas for his collection, along with local enterprise partnerships in the United Kingdom. He is keen however for the collection to stay in Britain.
He went on to say that whether it is at a national exhibition venue in the United Kingdom or is sold to a foreign bidder, he will insist on the collection staying together and he hopes that it will end up staying here.
The future for these classic models and what will happen ?
People interested in the collection have been approaching Dr Hull regarding the collection since late last year, the collection includes two 1954 Bentley Mulliner Continentals, a 1961 Jaguar E-Type and even a Sinclair C5, which is a one seat electric vehicle that was launched in 1985 and failed to take off as a mode of transport, though it entered into motoring folklore.Dr Hull said the winning bidder of the collection will be announced soon.
