Barn Finds reader Doug M writes, “A lot of very amazing cars that we do not often see here in the USA and an absolute treasure trove if you want a British sports car! I actually consider this one, lot 122, 1955 XK140, a perfect project and the story behind it, with the crane etc. is great.” Doug sent us information on this auction, being held on September 23rd at Brightwells in Herefordshire, United Kingdom. While there are many terrific and unusual cars (and tractors, and motorcycles, and boats…) in the auction, let’s look at the story of this Jaguar a little. It was originally sent to the US in July 1955 and was imported back to the UK in October 1989. It was driven into a garage at that point, occasionally being moved around but never road driven. As the years went by, access to the garage was blocked, and when the vendor retired about three years ago a crane had to be hired to lift the Jaguar out of its resting place and over the roof of the shop to get it onto a transporter. The vendor remembers the whole episode in vivid detail as he was unfortunate enough to break his leg when the cradle used to hoist the car fell off the transporter and knocked him to the ground! The auction estimate is 20-30,000 pounds–what do you think?
a lot of nice vehicles at this auction. i would be looking at the bugeyes, midgets/sprites and the tr2. great finds
I was able to watch a good amount of the auction live yesterday on the Brightwells site – the XK 140 sold for it’s low estimate at 20K pounds = $30,533.
There were some good buys, you can read the results on their site and it was a very interesting auction style – very different than the US ones I see on TV.
I think $30K was about full value. There is $25-30K of work that I can see just to clean this up. If the mechanicals need rebuilt too, it is over priced.