The 1965 Ferrari, mossy but not as rough mechanically as it looked, sold for £68,700 against a £30-40k estimate, with every one of Bonhams’ phones alight including staff’s personal mobiles, and the Kubel, with seats out and engine in the footwell, went for £21,850 against an estimate of £10-15,000, having been offered at no reserve.

This year-end round up was well attended as usual, attracting a different, more local crowd than Bonhams’ sales in the south. The next big seller was the 1950 Delahaye 135M with coupe coachwork by Guillore, on the money at £55,200 and an MG J4 recreation made out of a real J2 was £44,850, with a three-carb 1926 AC Six Tourer for restoration £13,225 against a £5000-8000 estimate. Two engines to suit it followed at £2185 and £690.

As ever, oddities and restoration projects populated the far end of the hall, with two restored Fergie tractors (£1495 and a very shiny £4025), an ex-Mersey Tunnel police SIII Land-Rover (£2990) and even a ‘Silentnight’ Guy Otter pantechnicon (£12,075). A WW2 ‘Gulashkanone’ field kitchen that could have been made for the Kubel followed it in the bidding and fetched £2300.

A Rolls-Royce 20/25 shooting brake looked cheap at £39,100 considering what it must have swallowed to build, a TR6 with the biggest door gaps in history was fair at £6785 and a 1975 Panther J72 with just 6500 miles from new was £22,425. For V8 fans, there was plenty to choose from: a tidy Allard P1 for £19,500, a restored 1965 Mustang 289 fastback good value at £23,000 and a 1957 Land Rover S1 with Rover power and later axles at just £5750, while a rough Jensen FF with its original Chrysler 383 on a pallet behind it was £10,580. A clutch of ’60s and ’70s American muscle cars proved once again to be a hard sell, and at their third auction appearance all went home without finding new owners, except for a ’66 Sting Ray convertible with four-speed at a fair £19,262.

All in, Bonhams sold 64 out of 92 lots for a 70% sale rate as it looked forward to its season-closer, the December 3 sale at Mercedes-Benz World, Brooklands.