Q&A JAMES WRAY-BRAYSHAW, WB & SONS (WBANDSONS.COM)
WHAT SALE TRENDS HAVE YOU NOTICED IN 2023, AND HOW WAS IT FOR YOU?
For us it has been great year full of growth; we have had over 1200 cars through our doors this year, and our buyer numbers have been rising steadily, as have our sale rates. Modern classics have been the trend this year with anything late ’80s to early 2000s doing very well. Of course, the excellent examples from any era will always be good news.
WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST OR MOST REMARKABLE AUCTION OF 2023?
Our biggest sale this year was our September auction, off the back of our ‘summer break’, giving us an extra two weeks in-between auctions. Instead of a holiday, this was spent chasing down more cars, resulting in our largest catalogue to date and our biggest result yet.
WHAT WERE YOUR HEADLINE VEHICLES OF THE YEAR?
The stand-out entries were the Vauxhall Astra GTE we sold in our October sale, setting a new auction record, plus the ex-police Ford Escort Cosworth in our September sale, which turned out to be the original test car sent by Ford to each police force to trial the new Cosworth fast pursuit vehicle. Staying with the Ford theme, we had the pleasure of selling what is arguably the best restored Sierra Rouse 304R in the country in September.
WHICH CONSIGNMENT WAS YOUR BIGGEST SURPRISE?
Two stand out. A Mercedes-Benz 190E Cosworth that was sent to us as a very nice example, but nothing
