Little money, so what are the drawbacks?

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Okay, okay, the time may be gone that you could buy a PreWarCar for buttons, but there are still cars out there that seem to offer an awful lot for relatively little money. Bonhams MPH sale on 17 July has a few lovely motors, which are estimated to start at around the £12,000 mark. They all seem to have one or two flaws but, on the other hand, also appear to be cars that can be enjoyed straight away. Let’s have a look at them.

1912 De Dion Bouton

We like the 1912 De Dion Bouton DH two-seater with the 1,642cc four-cylinder engine. It’s an older restoration, which would benefit from some work, but it seems to us that the car can be enjoyed without a restoration, too. There is a plate of De Dion agent A. Russell & Co. of Invercargill, NZ on the dashboard, which also makes us curious. Estimated at £12,000 to 16,000.

1925 Sunbeam & 1931 Austin Seven

In exactly the same price range, we also found a Sunbeam and an Austin. The first is a 14/40 Tourer of 1925 that’s been in the same family since 1966 and before that, there was only the original owner. So it's no surprise that most of the paperwork is still there. The downside? “It will require some mechanical attention due to lack of recent use”... The Austin has to be a Seven and it is. This one is of 1931-vintage and comes with a relatively rare cabriolet body by Tickford. This car has been restored in 2014 with a new crankshaft and high compression cylinder head and comes with a detailed, handwritten service history.

1926 Bean

The only prewar thought to go cheaper than these three is a commercial: a 1926 Bean 14hp pick-up. The car is said to have started life as a tourer but was converted to a pick-up in 1927, when it was only a year old. More than 70 years later it still was, but it needed a full restoration, which was carried out by Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway: a private line in Kent, who restored the car to have it featured in their collection. They did replace the engine with a considerably more modern unit though: a 1.6 four-cylinder Ford Pinto! Can you live with that? Or would you like to restore it to its original form?

Words by Jeroen Booij. Pictures courtesy of Bonhams.

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