I love a good night out. A song, a dance,maybe a slight scuffle all rounded off with a few hours in the cells helping the police with their enquiries. Well that’s what I do in the summer, but there’s really not much on at this end of the year.
It’s cold, dark and really quite boring, unless that is you pop down to your local auction. First of all don’t make the mistake of pitching up at an antique and bric-a-brac (whatever that is) sale in the town hall that your old Auntie would love. No, you need to find the one taking place in the middle of the trading estate at 6.30pm. You’ll smell it first, as loads of hard looking geezers take a puff on their ciggies, whilst a bunch of equally wheezing old cars belch out unfashionably high levels of C02.
It is all truly wonderful, as are the lots. My very good friend Kev was at a south coast event the other day and spied a particularly nice Rover 25 Steptronic. Kev is a strange bloke who worships at the shrine of all that rubbish that British Leyland used to make. Not surprisingly he really fancied the 25, which was just seven years old with a mere 77,000 miles on the clock and leather on the seats. Being automatic it would be painless enough to drive too. Interest ran out at £1025, which wasn’t enough to make it sell.
There’s a lesson there of course for the seller because right at this moment it is worth £1025 and it is unlikely to fetch very much more. I mean, if my mad mate Kev won’t pay anymore, on a cold Thursday night in winter then that’s going to be as good as it gets. Well it couldn’t get much worse than the practically dead Vauxhall Cavalier that sold for a tenner.
At least that Cavalier came into the auction ring under its own power, as for several weeks previously an old 1984 Porsche 924 had to be pushed all the way. It’s embarrassing for everyone and it hardly inspires confidence, as the prerequisite for most cars is that they actually start and move under their own power. So nobody is going to bid on what is little more than garden ornament. Obviously it is classier than a gnome, but someone must have realised that they really ought to invest in a new battery. That meant it crept in sounding sweet and was bid up to £495. Sold to the unshaven bloke in the anorak who obviously had not seen it’s non-starting appearances. I hope they are very happy together. It was sold as seen (SAS) you see. You are taking a great big fat risk when you find that there is no such thing as reverse gear, or that the head gasket is made out of old cornflake packets.
Driving home in your new purchase is the last place you want to find out the truth. So if you are an auction virgin listen out for he auctioneer who offers an end of sale trial with the car before the bidding starts. That’s the sensible way to do it. But then you see a BMW 840Ci like I did and lose all sense of reason. Either someone was going to physically restrain me, or I needed an excuse. It was dinnertime so I went to see Mr. Hot Dog in his white trailer and ordered the finest cup of tea and a frankfurter filled bun known to humanity. Mr. Hot Dog didn’t disappoint and by the time I got back in the ring the BMW had sold for a mere £3100. I’d missed a bargain, but maybe in the slightly longer term a small fortune in electronic diagnostic bills.
Watching the cars is obviously endlessly fascinating, but it is important to watch what everyone else is doing too. Traders are fairly easy to spot because of their trade price guides and they can spot a decent car. When they fuss around something it is worth a closer look. Even more importantly they know when to stop bidding, so you need to put the brakes on your right arm shooting up once they drop out. Otherwise you can’t go wrong at an evening auction were you can find the most entertaining automotive bric-abrac. You could convince yourself that the 1998 Mondeo TD that had a new engine fitted at 98k was a decent buy except that it had now done 228k and clearly needed another one. Perhaps the 700,000 mile Nissan Serena will catch your eye. Presumably it had covered those miles in the private hire business and had probably picked me up a few times on my non-auction nights out.
Words: James Ruppert