Race Retro Auction

[davidholroyd]

Went to Race Retro yesterday and stayed for the Silverstone auction. The auction its self was a bit of a shambles, if I had been a seller I would have been upset, not a patch on the professional H and H

Having said that there where 3 ?lans for sale, two of them ?competition? One a ?genuine? 26R , chassis 43 and a 1967 S3 modified for ?rallying?

The surprise to me was the 1967 ?rally? ?lan, this was ?just? an S3 Fixed Head with a wet sump engine , ( mine was dry in 67 spec when I went Historic rallying ) with an original body with flared arches, all the safety bits and a horrendous metallic bronze mint paint job. It was as the auction houses say, very well presented but in reality a car two years to young for proper historic racing and as historic rallying has moved on OK for the odd tarmac event abroad, in my book a bit heavy and needing a bit more power with dry sump etc. It also did not have a 26R chassis with the benefit of the extra strength. This to my mind this was ? 30K worth of fun max, the vendor turned down a top bid I think of ?58K ? astonishing is all I can say. Suggest our fellow forum members on the here with S3?s modified for a bit of racing give them a 3k paint job and get them sold as rally cars !

Then we come to the 26R... it looked very original, a bit too original to be completive against ?our? wide bodied full house racing ?lans. It had a narrow body and a very standard looking engine on a very small diameter exhaust system, the engine was reckoned to be good for just over 160 HP and looking at it I would say probably right. The narrow body meant skinny tyres on very original looking period wheels. It had been to Goodwood last year and to be fair it looked right. The chassis was 26R spec. This got to ? 108K and again this was not enough. I recon the 26R was about right form previous actual sales I know off and the S3 67 rally car was just ?wild?. Good look to the vendor if he can get over 60K for it.

[Fred Talmadge]

Prices are on the rise for Elans of any stripe here in USA as well. I use to think US$20,000 was a lot for an Elan. Now that seems common. I recently saw a slightly ratty Europa for about $7000 thinking it was a bargain. This is all good news for me as I already have a Elan, but at 60 years old I know I'll eventually sell it and the extra money will be welcomed.