Brightwells performed impressively at its Classic Car & Motorcycle auction by selling an impressive 73% of vehicles entered – 74 vehicles found new homes out of 102 offered to give a sale total of ￡780,000.

Best price of the day went to a 1963 Jaguar E-type Series One 3.8 Roadster which was still looking very smart after a major restoration in the early 1980s followed by some 25 years in storage. Specially recommissioned for the sale, it was eventually snapped up for ￡47,850. Other E-types also sold well, a Series Two Roadster fetching ￡29,000 despite having been declared an insurance write-off in the early 1990s, while a Series Three V12 Roadster with low mileage and a factory hardtop fetched ￡31,900.

Sticking with the Jaguar theme, a beautiful Sherwood Green 1963 Mk2 3.4-litre fetched ￡20,900 showing that these wonderfully handsome saloons still have a strong following. A left- to right-hand drive converted 1960 XK150 3.8 Fixed Head Coupe that had spent the last few years in storage also made ￡30,250.

A very sharp looking 1968 Aston Martin DBS Vantage that had once been owned Stuart Hall of 'It’s a Knockout' fame also performed very strongly, soaring way past top estimate before falling to a Dutch enthusiast for ￡42,900. With DB5s getting more expensive by the day, it seems that hitherto ‘lesser’ Astons are now being dragged up in their slipstream.

A bevy of MGs also performed strongly with a superbly restored 1969 MGC Roadster making a mighty ￡22,000, a new auction record for the model, showing how far these once-unloved little sportscars have come in recent years. A nicely mellowed 1949 MG TC fetched the predicted ￡18,350 while a pair of 1953 MG TDs also sold above estimate at ￡14,950 and ￡13,850 apiece.

Other machines of note included an exceptionally rare 1938 Talbot 3-Litre Tourer, one of only four known survivors and an ex-Motor Show car, that is now winging its way to Holland for ￡31,350 and a 1937 Talbot 10 Tourer that stayed in this country for ￡12,100. A wonderfully baroque 1959 Ford Fairlane Skyliner Hardtop Convertible, with a fully functioning electrically-retractable steel roof, also ended up in Germany for a creditable ￡19,000.

'Overall we were delighted with the results of the sale which shows that there are still plenty of buyers out there for the right cars,' said Brightwells chief consultant, James Dennison. 'With other auctions struggling to sell more than half their entries at recent sales, we were very happy with our 73% clearance rate.'