Barn-find Series I fetches £19,000 at auction
THE term “barn find” has been over used in Land Rover circles in recent years, often to describe vehicles that have never been near a barn, but are merely unrestored. But the dusty 1952 Series I featured here was that rarest of beasts – an early Land Rover workhorse that really had languished in the corner of a barn for over 30 years.
Better still, it was a one-owner vehicle. Or, if you want to be pedantic, two: father and son Horace and Gordon Holland of Grove Farm, Pettistree in Suffolk, who bought it new in 1952. They worked it hard until the late 1980s, by which time it had covered 71,000 miles and was no longer roadworthy.
“It requires total restoration, but the provenance was fantastic,” said auctioneer James Durrant. “What makes it very special is that it is very original and one owner from new – farmers within four miles of our auction centre.
The family even have some photos from when it was new. It was parked at the back of a barn untouched for many years and still has a thick layer of ‘authentic’ dust on it.”
Unlike most early Series Is, it didn’t go to a specialist classic car auction. Instead the family put it up for sale at a local auction house, which the Land Rover itself would have regularly visited for livestock markets.
It went under the hammer at Clarke and Simpson’s auction at Campsea Ashe, near Wickham Market, where the lot was described as: “a very rare opportunity to acquire an original Series I, with one family owner from new. Now requiring full restoration, the vehicle is offered for sale with old style V5 (only) and selection of historic tax discs”.
After a flurry of fierce bidding from enthusiasts, it was sold for £19,000.
Bidders shaken as Bond replica causes a stir
A James Bond-inspired Defender fetched a staggering $75,000 (a shade under £59,000) at auction in the USA. That’s a big price for a 27-year-old copycat, but it does have an interesting history.
The 3.5 V8 Defender 110 was delivered new to the Turkish military in 1993 and served for a decade before being demobbed in 2003. It then had two private owners until June 2019, when it was modified to mimic the Defenders used in the James Bond Spectre blockbuster.
The mods included a Santorini Black
