This private collection ‘barn find’ has all kinds of vehicles and some very rare.
If you are a classic car enthusiast and living in England, you are lucky enough to be able to participate in this upcoming ‘barn find’ auction. Not for a handful of cars, but 174 vehicles sitting under one large roof. This has got to be the biggest barn find news for this decade as unlike the usual one of two cars sitting in some secluded garage in some village or a rare multi-million dollar car hidden away for decades in an underground car park, this is huge collection of cars from various auto brands and there does not seem to be a pattern in this collection.
Looks more like a collection of vehicles that came from a quality used car dealer and not a car collector who has either disappeared.
At a nondescript warehouse in North London there is this massive private collection of 174 classic vehicles sitting under a thick sheet of dust and pigeon droppings. It seems that this entire collection is currently up for auction.
Now to those wish just get a glimpse of what exactly will be going under the hammer, there is a rather excellent YouTube video by The TFJJ down below who has done a quick tour of this vast collection. There is also an eBay listing linked here for a BMW 2002 1602 model, for those who wish to peruse the full inventory (and their guide prices) that is coming up for auction in more detail.
Just as a quick run-through of the gems in this dusty collection though for the few who perhaps didn’t click on either the video or the link, the currently highest priced lot in the collection is an MGA that is expected to go for £25,000 (RM143,000).
The other higher prized classic cars available meanwhile includes a rather tasty BMW 635 CSI and Porsche 964 911 cabriolet, a fair few Volkswagen Transporter vans, as well as over a dozen Mercedes-Benz R107 SLs amid the wider sea of vintage three-pointed star models.
It is not just cars from the past that have been hidden away in this warehouse too, as there are also some more modern motors in the mix as well. In fact, what is going up for auction spans the entire eclectic gamete from the likes of a wedge-shaped Nissan 300ZX and Daihatsu Copen, to a Piaggio Porter and even a Reva G-Wiz.
As for the conditions of these cars on the other hand, their dry storage in this warehouse fortunately prevented the typically miserable British weather in doing a number on them thus far. It has also been claimed that all these cars are apparently able to run on their own power, with the aforementioned video above showing at least some of these motors cranking to life after its long hibernation too.
Judging by the thick layer of grime coating each and every vehicle in this massive warehouse though, these ‘ran when parked’ barn finds might perhaps be needing a little bit more TLC before being legally able to be driven on public roads again. With a fair few cars shown to be missing more than its fair share of parts also, it is perhaps not too drastic to say that a full restoration is perhaps in order for at least some of the lots that will be going under the hammer.
And in speaking about going under the hammer, the details of the auction process itself is somewhat intriguingly shrouded in mystery for the time being. That is because rather than a physical auction house or one of the many online auction services being used to find new custodians for these cars, the party in charge of this whole show, London Barn Finds, has asked prospective buyers to instead submit ‘sealed bids’ for their interested cars following a viewing day that occurred on Monday.
So there really isn’t all that much details out there then in regards to the bidding process, or even the timeline of the auction in general.
Those though who do fancy rolling up their sleeves and tackling one of these barn-find projects should therefore be keeping an eye on the London Barn Finds Instagram page for further details as to what is going on, not to mention too having a better look as to what exactly has been hidden away in this massive warehouse.
Research and Text by Joshua Chin
