4Ltr

[John Murch]

When the late Alex Tanner's cars were sold at auction I thought the 4ltr dhc was particularly attractive. It went very cheaply. Only a few weeks later its body was off and being sold, presumably to create an 8ltr LeMans car.
I see that Iconic Auctioneers at their 11 November auction have a lovely 4Ltr saloon, one can only hope that it doesn't suffer the same fate as Alex Tanner's car.

[Stephen Blakey]

Thanks for that, John. I wondered about having a pop at Alex's 4L, and now wish I had saved it from such an ignominious fate. However, as a tight fisted northerner, I struggle with the eye-watering auctioneers fees.
My dear friend John Cobbing's beloved 4½ has also been de-bodied and mutilated by the new owner. John would have been heartbroken.
Is it wrong to expect the cars to be shown a little respect?

[Christopher Carnley]

Not where money and or prestige are involved.

[Martin Webster]

Any colour Sir would like as long as it’s green with a Union Jack on each side.

[Stephen Blakey]

[John Murch]

The details of the advert (prewarcar.com) for the body were posted on the VSCC forum and a number of people responded on that forum stating that they had spoken to the person responsible.
The 4ltr in question was the dhc and not the 4/8 tourer, the body advertised did appear to be from the Tanner car. I would be delighted if this were not the case but from the VSCC forum comments I fear it was.
The other body in the auction was a different colour.

PS
Stephen, I think I failed in sending you a PM.

[Stephen Blakey]

John,
Thank you for that. All very sad.
The pm system has been broken for years. I did stumble across it by accident quite a while back. There was an old one from Ron asking if I would like to take over as forum moderator. This was after Paul Spencer had been unceremoniously booted out of the post and, despite the pm being pretty ancient by then, I sent a reply declining politely. I've no way of knowing whether that message landed. I suspect not.
As a workaround for the lack of pm's it should be fairly easy to send an email by clicking on the profile button associated with a post from the intended recipient. There is an email option there. Failing that it's a question of getting the email address from the membership list, which isn't onerous. Apologies if you already know all that. It may be useful to others.
Stephen

[Stephen Blakey]

Returning to the original post,

The hammer price on this car was £115,000; £5000 more than Alex's tourer.

Assuming VAT was paid, the buyer paid £132,250 and the seller received £104,650 less the £300 catalogue fee and minus other expenses including transport and storage. So the auction house will have basically made around £30K. When my daughters were junior hospital doctors it would have taken them a year of life or death decisions on exhausting shifts to take that much home. Maybe that's the wrong way to look at it?

Returning swiftly to the car, it was for sale by the Real Car Co at the RREC rally in 2019 at an asking price of £155K "serviced, prepared and newly MoT'D" although the word was that it wouldn't start. There's a bit more history on the blurb that accompanied it.



Having seen the car, I can confirm that the coachwork is a joy to behold and clearly a labour of love.

With cruel irony, the auctioneer reminded us all that only 12 of the 50 Four Litres have survived. I wonder if this figure was updated to reflect the destruction of Alex's tourer, and whether we are going to have get used to it dropping by one after each sale?