Worth every penny, but that seems a good price for a late Lancia at Matthewsons. I did worry that it would only fetch half that, which would have been tantamount to theft.......
What did it go for please?
Hammer down at £6,800 Brian.
Overall it's about the figure I hoped for, between 5 and 6k I thought ought to be achievable, getting so near to 7k was a good result for an auction.
I had the car advertised in a few places with very, very little interest if I'm being honest, 2 or 3 viewings over 3 months or so with not one offer shows that although it is a great car, as Derek pointed out, the potential queue of buyers just isn't there unlike for anything Ford or German, comes down to fashion and the percieved desirability of certain cars. Lets face it, there's no way the frankly agricultural Mk2 Escort should be a £50k car but there's a huge rose tinted nostalgia for them, so the price shoots up. There's not a single thing they do better than the Dedra, aside from maybe a rear wheel slide out f a roundabout yet they command crazy prices. I remember getting them for a few hundred quid as nobody wanted them, should have filled a barn up!
As for the service provided and result by Mathewsons I can't fault them. They can only promote the car so much but if the buyers aren't there then they can't perform miracles. There's no logic to say that any potential buyers from other auctions weren't aware of the cars sale, they promote the cars well on the website with 40+ of there own pictures, a walk round video that is also available via youtube, even a sale preview on youtube where the Dedra was touted as a car to beadmired according to a friend who follows there social media stuff.
The Y10 they sold for me likewise achieved a decent result, well promoted and all done in a friendly simple format, very much the business is done in the traditional family ways where good service is valued. I have sold other cars via other classic car auctions and haven't felt that way, more business like and formal rather than how they are at Mathewsons, a serious business but run in a friendly manner.
I agree that someone (anyone on here?) has got a bargain in as much as to "build" that car you just couldn't do for that figure. Roughly speaking the car cost £2k to buy, paint was £2.5k, interior an eye watering £4k+!, wheels and tyres another grand, turbo rebuild and exhaust another £500 or so, engine rebuild parts like rings/shells/gaskets/clutch/belts etc was another £1k or so, then you figure parts out like the new intercooler/water radiator/suspension parts/powder coating/brake parts etc that easily totalled another £1,500+ so there's £11,500 off the top of my head which means there is most likely another grand or two in parts I've forgotten about! New windscreen for example, another £200 or so.
You'll notice too there's not a penny of labour as I did it all myself, i you had to pay for it to be done then it would be a wildy different story!
So yes in a way it has been purchased well for about half what I have spent on it, but then it's now in well enough condition so it will go on for many a year to come, so there's satisfaction that another one has been saved.
