4 - Friday, October 9, 1992 - North Shore News

Pondering the allure of antique chrome

WE WERE three grey old men discussing cars.

Well, not old. In fact in the high noon of life. Let's just say the high noon of life is too damn- ed old.

We stood like giants in the parking lot at North Vancouver Centennial Theatre. (1 threw in ike viants’' to make us feel bet- ter.)

Around us were dozens of cost- ly old cars. The occasion was preview day at last weekend’s classic car auction.

Roy Peterson, the outstanding cartoonist for The Vancouver Sun and Maclean’s and an old — oops, there’s that word again — West Vancouver resident, looked about him.

Did he feel, as I felt, that these car aficionados drooling over the expensive machinery were a bunch of johnny-come-latelies? Must ask him.

Roy once owned an MG-TC. No, not as a collector, you young

. whippersnappers. Owned it in the early 1950s.

Yes, the car hailed as the post-war instigator of the North American sports car phenomenom.

Roy drove his TC at the time when it was a real eyebrow-raisi car on the road, not — as become — a museum piece seidon seen except in old-car rallies and such.

And I'd owned an MG-TF, Who could forget it. pumping out its 57 hp, the engine turning at 15.3 mph per 1,000 rpm? ¢ haven't.

My ®rether bought this ivory- colored baby in 1954 for $2,025.

{ bought it from him two yeirs later at a brotherly bargain price of $1,690. Sold it two years on for the same.

At last Sunday's auction an MG-TF sold for $16,000 Larry Emerick, the ¢

knot of young oldsters and our colleagite at the Sun, is the only one of us who has gamely kept up the wind-in-the-hair, bugs-in- the-teeth tradition.

Larry owns a jaw-dropping Morgan Plus Four, gra reen with a blinding yellow radiator cowl, & rare.four-seater with the 2%-litre Triumph engine.

Roy these days drives a sporty but practical Pontiac T-top, while {have compromised myself sadly with nothing more adventurous than a 1964 Pontiac convertible, which I purchased as recently as 1966.

Some people are beginning to stare at it as if it were old.

Nonsense.

A car of 28 summers is just nicely broken in, and it seems like only yesterday that 1 was a semi- dashing retreaded bachelor driving blondes around in it,

Anyway, we three stood there and shot appraising glances at the Austin Healeys, 8MWs, Porsches,

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Aston Martins, Rolls-Royees, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Corvettes and so forth around us.

Chatting there in the sun, we enjoyed the most delightful kind of male camraderie: the costless fun of talking about cars.

Larry offered me a ride in his Morgan. | glanced at the glow-er- ing clouds around Lynn Valley.

Larry remarked that he didn’y bother with anything as decadent as atop. When it rains, he gets wel.

E looked at the clouds again. And begged off.

Sissy!

I, who used to drive my TF top-down in January! Admittedly with a wool balaclava that made me look like an IRA terrorist. Where had that hardy youth gone?

Possibly that was why | im- pulsively decided at the last minute next morning to attend the auction itself. Possibly J had vague ideas about rediscovering that youth, .

I didn’t. § found only that I was an old man with a young family who cautiously refrained from registering as a bidder lest he be stupid enough to actually buy samething.

However, | watched safely from the cheap seats. And fearned a lot. Like: First, collectable cars are

no more recession-proof th anything else, and people who restore such cars for fun and profit are more likely to have fun than to profit.

Trevor Lautens

GARDEN OF BIASES

Second, even in a recession there are some crazy bucks out there for some crazy cars.

To deal with the second point first:

There was only one really eye- popping sale. tt seems likely a few car brokers blew into town from the U.S. just to snap up this par- ticular car.

ap up" may not be quite the phrase.

The car was a 1967 Ferrari 275GTB/4. (if you can memorize that, keep your eye out for an old one rusting behind same farmer's barn. Read on.)

The catalogue description was none too flatterin, Very good. Damaged transaxle, low mileaze and original, Red with black inte-

“6 LANGLEY.

“TOROS Lynley

rior, very special car."

The bidding began at a quarter of a million dollars,

When it hit $300,000, it began to get serious.

At $320,000, the triflers drop- ped out.

Above that, the bids grimly went up in $1,000 increments be- tween an elderly gentleman — oh, about my age — and a young dude in the back with a trendy moustache.

(You knew, of course, that the moneyed class today all wear bleached-out blue jeans, shapeless jackets, and black cowboy or motorcycle boots, didn’t you?)

The bidding stopped at $350,000 bang-on.

And this for a car with a dam- aged transaxle, folks.

The crowd clapped. Enviously,

I guess.

But a lot of other cars failed to make their reserve and went home unsold. Examples:

1948 Bentley Mk VI. Striking deep red and black body, fair in- terior, Bid: $15,000. Well below the $20,000 reserve.

1970 Jaguar E-type. stopped at $32,000. $36,000.

A huge 1986 Zimmer — one of those awful things designed in pseudo-Thirties style — had a $40,000 reserve. Only $20,000 bid.

Avery lovely black 1964 Mercedes 220 SE cabriolet: $25,000 bid, $33,500 reserve.

A magnificent two-tone brown 1981 Rolls-Royce Corniche con-

Bidding Reserve:

* ABBOTSFORD

OG. 393;

€ lith Mepiti

kakuck Way

vertible, only 33,000 km, with a $70,000 reserve, drew a top bid of $64,000.

And a thoroughly rebuilt and beloved 1971 Aston Martin DBS V8, which the owner told Larry would have attracted $65,000 a couple of years ago, got a top bid of $37,060 —- $3,000 short of the reserve.

Not that there weren't plenty of sales. 1964 Corvette, $16,500. A °64 Ford Galaxy convertible at- tracted a lot of interest and went for $12,000.

A beautiful 1936 LaSalle con- vertible was bid up to $21,600,

And, to my eye, the bargain of the auction was a white 1970 Rolls coupe with body by Park Ward Mulliner and left-hand drive — many older Rolls here are RHD imports from Britain — for $20,000.

You want heartbreak? That was a 1960 Austin Healey 3000 — vir- tually showroom-new, a knockout. The restoration took two years. The bills were $55,000.

The work was completed only last Friday. And the car went for $28,000. That’s a large, large bath.

I went home with some soberly revised thoughts about the real, not the phoney, market value of collectible cars.

And I went home smug, too. | have an absolutely wnique collec- tor car. It is the only 1964 Pontiac Parisienne convertible owned 26 years by Trevor Lautens.