You would have found standing room only and an excited crowd if you’d tried to attend Bonhams & Goodman’s auction of Collectors' Cars, Boats and Numberplates at Byron Kennedy Hall at Fox Studios on Sunday 26 March. A telephone bidder from Victoria bought a c1957 Mercedes Benz 300 SL Roadster for an extraordinary $452,000. The much-anticipated c1969 Toyota 2000GT from the Harold Clisby collection sold for $226,000 - double its pre-sale estimates. The Toyota had been attracting considerable attention during the lead up to the sale and three bidders fiercely contested it in the rooms while four made bids on the telephones. It eventually went to a buyer on site.

An extremely rare c1900 Locomobile, also from the Clisby collection, sold for $47,460 to an overseas collector. A c1928 Rolls Royce Phantom 1 Saloon by Windover also drew interest, going to an absentee bidder for $178,300, well above the pre-sale estimates. The first lot of the day, a c1955 Ford Thunderbird convertible fetched $70,060 despite modest estimates of only $32,000-40,000. It also went to a local man bidding in the rooms.

Other, more varied results include a c1926 Sunbeam 3litre twin-cam Super sports for $148,030, a c1933 Delage D8 15 series Coupe for $62,150, a c1954 Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire Saloon for $10,735 and a c1977 Jaguar XJ6 Series II for $3,616. The Queensland numberplates sold well - being shared among three absentee bidders. The right to display NSW '911' sold for $96,050 to a man who had bought a Porsche from a Bonhams & Goodman auction two years previously. The c1927 Bentley 6 1/2 litre Speed 6 replica, executed by the late Tony Townsend for a noted Australian collector and the c1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL 'Gullwing' were under offer when going to print.
David Bird, Head of the Car Department remarked that the sale confirmed that collectors cars of top quality are steadily gaining value and will always attract serious interest.

Getting a little bored with mere cars and utes? Just days after you receive this issue, you can catch an onsite auction of historic tanks and militaria from the Belfield Tank Museum in Melbourne. Bonhams & Goodman will conduct this unusual auction on April 23 - appropriately just before Anzac Day. Since announcing the sale, Bonhams & Goodman has received an enormous response from home and overseas militaria collectors.

The auction will feature over 50 military vehicles including tanks, APCs, armoured cars, trucks, motorcycles and a diverse range of other militaria from WW1, WW2 and up to the Vietnam War. You’ll find a Churchill Mk VII tank, a Centurion Main Battle tank, Australian WW2 prototype tanks, Buffalo amphibious landing craft, a Saladin armoured car, a BSA M20 Solo motorcycle, a Diamond T recovery truck and a Mack tank transporter.

Highlights include two cruiser tanks AC1 ‘Sentinel’ and an AC3 ‘Thunderbolt’, designed and built in Australia during WW2 when the Australian Army was desperately short of modern tanks. The AC3 was assembled from parts collected by Mr Belfield. The only other in existence resides at the Australian War Memorial. Two Matilda tanks are also on offer and were fitted in Australia with flame throwers to be used in the South West Pacific against the Japanese. John Belfield's passion for collecting and restoring military vehicles began at age six. His collection has rapidly grown over the past 60 years, housed in a private museum in Melbourne. Mr Belfield originally opened the museum to help educate Australian youth about the signficance of the Anzacs.