A £50,000 Audi Quattro, a bargain Lagonda Rapide, and a handful of French and German oddballs that prove the market is full of surprises. If you love classic cars, auction drama, and the kind of brutally honest price-picking that only comes from people who are part of the industry, this episode is for you.

The Old Car Lady puts 6 lots under the microscope with sharp, opinionated calls on value, condition, and desirability. From a 1990 Audi Quattro 20-valve press car with a serious premium question hanging over it, to a rare Lagonda Rapide that's suddenly looking like smart money, every car gets judged on more than just shiny paint and a glossy brochure. 

She invites Richy Barnett - Markets Editor for Classic Car Weekly, Simon Monks from Lot 76 YouTube channel and dealer Jason Hall from Bramhall Classics to share their market insights as well as challenging them to guess where these cars will end up under the hammer.

You'll hear detailed reactions to a 1978 Peugeot 604 V6 SL in exceptional condition, a no-reserve 1978 Citroën GS Club, and a beautifully preserved Mercedes 190 Ponton with one of the most obsessive history files you'll ever hear about. Along the way, the conversation digs into what actually adds value at auction, why press car provenance can be both a blessing and a curse, and which classic shapes still stop people in their tracks.

• In this episode: the 1971 Hillman Hunter Super 1725 is discussed as a no reserve resto-mod-style car that had a strong preview appeal, and the final price lands at £5,344 including fees, above the early estimate.
•  Simon from Lot76 weighs in on the 1990 Audi Quattro 20-valve press car, arguing that the 20-valve version is more desirable than the 10-valve and that press-car provenance may justify a premium, but only up to a point.
•  The Audi's press-car history becomes the big question: better documentation and preparation, but potentially a harder life from magazine and TV testing, track use, and repeated wear.
•  The Lagonda Rapide is highlighted as the speaker's top pick of the sale, with a concise history of Aston Martin and Lagonda being brought together under David Brown and the market shifting from high-value to much more accessible territory.
•  The Lagonda Rapide is praised for its design and value, with the estimate reset from a lofty prior range to a more saleable level, and it ultimately sells for £50,625 including fees.
•  Jason Hall of Bramhall Classics joins the conversation outside to talk through a batch of French and German curiosities, and how he very nearly ended up a Maserati main dealer.
•  The Peugeot 604 is treated as a hidden gem: left-hand drive, automatic, recent cosmetic work, and a strong sense of old-money elegance, though the market estimate looks low for such a tidy
•  The 1978 Citroën GS Club gets a strong endorsement as a practical, efficient, compact family car that still makes sense today, with special mention of the bi-rotor version and the strength of Citroën enthusiast demand
•  The Mercedes 190 Ponton closes out the discussion as a car with exceptional history and real driver appeal, but the lot does not meet reserve and remains unsold despite reaching €10,000 on the day.

I would like to apologise for the reduced quality of today’s episode - the Producer is having a well earnt rest and I’ve had a crack at it myself - normal higher quality business will be resumed shortly.

Simon Monks of Lot 76 YouTube channel @Lot76CARS

Richy Barnett of Classic Car Weekly and www.thespecial.org website

Jason Hall of Bramhall Classics 

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The Old Car Lady is joined by Paul Gardner, founder of Speed Broker. Paul and his wife manage private treaty sales on behalf of collectors: photography, listings, storytelling, negotiation and handover, with the car staying exactly where it is.

Paul’s career went from a paper round to Halfords, through valeting, wrapping, three years travelling with the Gumball 3000 and a restoration centre in Essex. Along the way: The Beatles’ E-Type, a Ferrari F40 in Switzerland, 70s Astons and a De Tomaso Pantera that started up outside a block of flats in North London and changed everything.

The De Tomaso Pantera on the Paper Round: Paul was 13, delivering papers in North London, when a man started up a De Tomaso Pantera outside a block of flats. That was it. Sold for life. The E-Type his dad had admired at 10 was the first spark. The Pantera was the one that lit the fire.

The Beatles’ E-Type: Bought at the Coys auction in 2016. It had belonged to Ivor Arbiter, the man who created the logo on The Beatles’ drum kit and assisted with instruments and bookings. The car had been left rotting for 40 years. Paul’s restoration centre in Essex spent two years returning it to a Series 1 flat-floor E-Type in crimson. It won awards.

Speed Broker: Matchmakers for Classic Cars: Paul Gardner and his wife manage private treaty sales without the car leaving the owner. No dealer risk, no auction floor. Full photography, storytelling, negotiation and handover for a commission. The car stays in the owner’s garage until it is sold to the right person.

One in, One Out and the Cars You Regret: Paul has owned close to 400 personal cars. Both he and Sam have sold things they wish they hadn’t. Paul’s approach was to own everything he had an opinion about so he could form that opinion himself. His conclusion: brilliant strategy, terrible financial plan.

Square Pegs in Square Holes: The best deals Paul does are the ones where he already knows the buyer before the car comes to him. Building the community, running the events, staying in the room: all of it means that when a 70s Aston or a flat-floor E-Type needs a home, he usually knows exactly whose home it should be.

Speed Broker, Paul’s private treaty sales business. Find them on Instagram. The restoration centre in Essex where The Beatles’ E-Type was rebuilt. Ivor Arbiter and the Coys auction where it was found. And the man in North London with the De Tomaso Pantera who will never know what he started.

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The Old Car Lady is joined by Richie Barnett of Classic Car Weekly and Simon Monks of the Lot 67 YouTube channel to review three auctions on the same weekend: Historics, Manor Park Classics and Hampsons.

They cover the state of the market, what auction houses are getting right and wrong, who bears responsibility when a car is not what it appeared, and whether Series 1 E-Types at £45,000 represent the buying opportunity of the decade. Honest, experienced and not always in agreement.

Is the Classic Car Market Dead? All Three Say No.: The doom-mongering is overdone. Good cars at sensible prices are still selling. Values have rebalanced and all three expect a steady plateau. Auction houses investing millions in new premises would not be doing so if the market was finished.

The Humber Imperial That Made £6,000: Sam expected low four figures. It made £6,000. Someone really wanted it. All three agree Rootes Group cars are undervalued and the Super Snipes, Imperials and Sceptres are quietly finding their audience.

E-Type Series 1 at £45k: Buy or Watch?: Richie and Simon both think now is the time. Series 1 E-Types at £45,000 represent prices not seen in a decade. A Series 2 in good order starts with a three. A whole new group of buyers who could never afford them before is about to discover them.

What Auction Houses Get Right and Wrong: Walk-around videos are good. A hundred and fifty photographs of the same car from slightly different angles are not. Silent walk-around videos are somewhere in between. Descriptions that do not match the car when you get there are the thing that sticks. Shit sticks, as all three put it.

Who Is Responsible When It Goes Wrong?: Joint responsibility between vendor, auction house and buyer. The vendor must declare known faults. The auction house should flag anything obvious. The buyer must do their homework: check the MOT history for free online, read the file, and if something matters to you, ask for a video underneath before you bid.

Why a steady plateau is the most realistic market outlook. Why TR6s are now worth more than TR3s and what that tells you about nostalgia having a sell-by date. Why Historics spent £5 million on new premises and what that signals. Why competition cars tend to change hands in the paddock rather than at mainstream auctions. And why you should always look up the MOT history before you bid on anything.

Richie Barnett at Classic Car Weekly and thespecial.org. Simon Monks at Lot 67 on YouTube. Historics, Manor Park Classics and Hampsons auction houses, all of whose results from this weekend were still filtering through at the time of recording.

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The Old Car Lady heads to Tim Ashworth of Stockley Classics for a barn tour. Six Metros, all rare, all significant, all in various states of readiness. Tim walks Sam through each one: what it is, why it matters and whether the maths will ever add up.

A one-of-six VP500 with the certificate and the champagne long since drunk. A reimported opaline S with its original 1982 invoice. The 200th GJW press car in vermilion. A Kawasaki green go-kart with Type R seats and a bored-out engine. And the Metro van BL should have built but never did.

The VP500: One of Six Left: Built to celebrate the 500,000th Metro. All black, gold stripe, pepperpots, full leather and a bottle of champagne on delivery. Five hundred built. Six remain. Tim has the certificate and plans to restore it next. Sold with a fresh bottle.

The Opaline S: A Left-to-Right Reimport: Bought new in Belgium in 1982, converted to right-hand drive and sold back into the UK by an official importer. One owner from new. Original purchase invoice: £3,996. Steel sunroof, beige cloth instead of the standard strobe upholstery, 40-odd thousand miles, garaged all its life. A true garage find.

GJW 200: The 200th Press Car: W-reg, vermilion, number 200 of the 200 GJW press cars. Tim is appealing for anyone with BL archive material from the early 80s to get in touch.

Kermit: The Kawasaki Green Go-Kart: Started as a 998cc Metro L, bought on eBay, collected down the M6 on a jerry can. Now running a bored-out engine, Type R seats, no rear seats, carbon bonnet and a side exhaust. Sam has asked for a track day at Oulton Park. They are doing it.

The Van That Never Was: Ex-Midlands Electricity Board 998cc Metro van, now running an MG Metro turbo engine, MG body kit, turbo alloys, pearl white with full colour coding. Tim’s version of the MG Metro van Austin Rover never built. It always gets attention at shows. It will start first time.

Tim Ashworth at stockleyclassics.com. Appeal for BL press archive photos of GJW cars. Red MG Metro turbo Mark 2 coming to Stockley Classics soon. Oulton Park track day in Kermit: stay tuned.

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The Old Car Lady is back with motoring writer Martin Buckley for Part 2 of the photo archaeology sessions. This time Martin goes bigger: the Aga Khan’s one-of-two Maserati Quattroporte, bought in LA in 2015, thrashed round America and sold for considerably more than he paid. One of only two ever built. The other went to the King of Spain.

There is also Harold Wilson’s Humber Imperial with its bomb-proof floor and its original HW1 plate, a bomb-proof Silver Spur delivered to a nervous young Mexican in a Madrid hotel, a Crayford conversion nobody knew was a Crayford, and the gold Lancia Flavia 2000 Coupe Martin found in Loot that he will regret selling for the rest of his life.

The Aga Khan’s Maserati Quattroporte: One of two Frua-bodied Quattroportes built on a stretched Indy platform. The Aga Khan had one, the King of Spain had the other. Martin bought his in LA, thrashed it round California, shipped it back, had a stalk repaired with glue rather than pay £600 for a proper fix, tried to sell it through JD Classics in Mayfair and eventually sold it privately. Now worth half a million. He is glad he had it. He is glad it is someone else’s problem.

Harold Wilson’s Humber Imperial: HW1 on the plate, bomb-proof floor, massive air conditioning unit on the front. Martin’s dad had it, his dad did some daft things with it and it ended up getting scrapped. A C-reg AMC Ambassador parked permanently in Ashton stood nearby and never moved. Neither story ends well.

The Bomb-Proof Spur to Madrid: Martin’s father sold a bomb-proof Silver Spur to a young Mexican businessman, delivered to a Madrid hotel, keys left with the concierge in the safe. The buyer said he’d collect it at some point. Windows so heavy they went up and down slowly. Doors you could feel the weight of from ten feet away.

The Gold Lancia Flavia He Found in Loot: Gold with green carpets and black plastic seats, bought from a journalist who’d found it with no brakes. Reliable, smooth, beautiful to drive, took the family on holiday. The faster it went the smoother it got. Martin sold it, suspects it got scrapped and has never found another one he liked as much.

Martin Buckley, motoring writer and author. Sam’s photos from the session are on Instagram at @the_old_car_lady. The Car Time Team field trip to Stockport is being planned. And next week: a barn full of Metros that have been sitting untouched for years. Do not miss it.

Toyota MR2 raffle: two free entries with code MR2POD at Raffall. 51,000 miles, 11-month MOT. Proceeds to Dogs Trust - just google ‘Raffall the old car lady’ or search on www.raffall.com and use code MR2POD for 2 free tickets - the raffle will be drawn on July 18th.

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The Old Car Lady heads to the RREC National Rally to meet Anthony Kearsley, classic car collector, Auto Couture owner and star of Channel 4’s Handcuffed. Anthony walks Sam through some of the most extraordinary cars at the event, including a £1,000,000 one-off Bentley S3 Drophead, a 1933 Silver Wraith Landaulet with an Edwardian coachbuilt body, and Richard Harris’ Phantom V…the only car he ever owned.

A Rolls-Royce Spirit in Applejack reunited with the Vanden Plas 1500 it was built to match, the Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Sedanca built for an oil baron & a Bentley R-Type with no roof and another restoration story.

The Applejack Spirit and the Vanden Plas 1500: A Spirit stripped and restored in Applejack to match a surviving Vanden Plas 1500. The husband who wanted the same colour on a Spirit died before he could order it. Anthony completed what he never lived to commission. £50,000, six years. The two cars met for the first time at this rally.

The £550,000 Bentley S3 Drophead: No Rolls-Royce or Bentley drophead existed in the 60s if you wanted one, you had it coachbuilt. Anthony commissioned this one to Mulliner blueprints: acrylic white, St James red, electric red mohair roof. Over £550,000 and multiple failed delivery dates later, PNA have quoted a million pounds to build one today. He says never again.

Richard Harris’ Phantom V: The only car Richard Harris ever owned, gifted reputedly by Princess Margaret, used by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for their Wales tour, left in a New York car park for 25 years and retrieved with £100,000 in parking fees. Anthony first saw it at Jack Barclay’s in the 1990s. It is midnight blue and it is for sale.

The Withnail and I Sedanca: A Silver Wraith Hooper Sedanca built for Calouste Gulbenkian, the Armenian oil baron who earned 5% of every barrel sold. Lizard skin interior, a speedo in the back to monitor the chauffeur, and a starring role as Uncle Monty’s car in Withnail and I. Sold for £95,000. Worth considerably more to the right person.

The Bentley R-Type With No Roof: Converted from a four-door saloon to a convertible at a cost of a quarter of a million pounds, then discovered it would cost another fifty grand to fit a proper hood. It went to auction. Highest bid was £58,500. The lady of the house has decreed it is not coming back.

Why buying a fully restored classic is almost always better value than restoring one yourself. Why the pre-war Rolls-Royce market is losing its custodians faster than it is gaining new ones. Why the chauffeur always got the leather seat and the owner got the fabric. What MacArthur Park has to do with a Phantom V. And why a car restored to a quarter of a million pounds can fail to reach £60,000 at auction.

• Is it ever worth commissioning a one-off coachbuilt Rolls-Royce or Bentley today? Anthony says probably not twice. The £550,000 Bentley would cost a million to build now. The heartache and failed delivery dates are real. Buy the best restored car someone else has already suffered through.
• Are pre-war Rolls-Royces undervalued? Anthony bought a 1933 Silver Wraith Landaulet with over £200,000 of restoration for £26,500 at auction. The previous owner had Alzheimer’s. The people who restore these cars are leaving the scene faster than new buyers are arriving.
• What makes a car genuinely special beyond its condition? Every car Anthony walks Sam past has a human story: a husband’s unfulfilled wish, a hellraising actor’s only possession, a billionaire’s bespoke commission. Anthony’s view is that the story is inseparable from the car and always will be.

Anthony Kearsley and Auto Couture, who offer chauffeur hire from £1,500. The film The Ghost of Richard Harris on Sky Arts, featuring Anthony, Jared Harris and the Phantom V. The RRC National Rally. And Hooper, Mulliner and the great coachbuilders whose work still commands rooms full of people who cannot quite believe what they are looking at.

https://autocoutureltd.com/ 

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The Old Car Lady sits down with motoring writer Martin Buckley to go through a box of photographs taken on the streets of Manchester and Stockport in the late 70s and 80s. Martin was a teenager with a camera and an eye for anything interesting, and he found plenty.

A Fiat 130 abandoned in a pub car park in Audenshaw. A Bristol 406 with no plates and no engine photographed on a night out in Stockport. A Lamborghini Urraco outside a mate’s garage in Ashton. A Ferrari 275 GTS spotted outside an auto electrician in Bredbury. A 300 SL Roadster in a mill car park. This is what was out there if you knew where to look.

The Fiat 130 at The Blue Pig: S reg, right-hand drive, badge nicked off the back, sitting in the car park of a pub in Audenshaw for months. Martin went in and asked about it. The landlord said no. He went back twice. It was always there.

Espadas on Slip Roads and a Vinyl Roof: A dodgy classic car dealer in the early 80s who promised Martin an E type for Christmas and never delivered. He had two Lamborghini Espadas, took Martin out in one flat out on a motorway slip road doing well over 100. The other one had a vinyl roof. Covering the rust.

The Bristol 406 on a Night Out: No plates, possibly no engine, photographed twice: once in colour and once in Martin’s black and white artistic period. He insisted on dragging his mates past it on the way to a club in Stockport. They thought he was weird. He does not disagree.

Parking the Bristol in Pall Mall: Martin bought a Bristol 407 cheap, drove it from Stroud to London late at night at 100 miles an hour and parked it in Pall Mall. Found a space immediately. He says there was no Bristol moment that was ever going to top that.

The Ferrari 275 GTS in Bredbury: Spotted outside an auto electrician in Bredbury. Worth millions now. Martin followed it in off the street. He has since owned a Ferrari 400 automatic and a 412 manual. His dad had a genuinely lovely 400i that Ferrari UK found nothing wrong with when they got their hands on it.

Why pub car parks were long-term storage for interesting cars all over Greater Manchester. Why the Bristol 406 six-cylinder is now both Martin’s and Sam’s favourite. Why the Espada is a grenade waiting to go off and why Martin is still not cured of them. Why auto electricians who don’t make things worse are harder to find now than a Ferrari 275 GTS in Bredbury. And why the A6 through Stockport was the place to go car shopping before the internet.

• Is the Lamborghini Espada worth owning today? Martin’s view: only if you have the equivalent of the car’s new price sitting in the bank as a just-in-case fund. You also need a specialist who will actually work on one. He has owned one and is not cured.
• Bristol 406 or 407: which is the one to have? Both Martin and Sam come down on the 406 with the six-cylinder engine as peak Bristol. Better proportioned, better balanced, nicer to drive. The V8s are faster but the engine is heavier and the handling suffers.
• Did growing up surrounded by interesting cars make you a better judge of them? Martin’s dad had P5Bs, a Lotus Elite, Lancias and Ferraris. Martin had access to an Opel Senator 3 litre as a teenager and thought nothing of it. He now thinks that background makes you harder to impress and slower to buy badly.

Martin Buckley, motoring writer and author, whose archive of 35mm photos from the streets of Greater Manchester is exactly the kind of thing nobody else kept. Part 2 is coming. Barry Moran’s garage in Ashton, where the Lamborghini Urraco was a regular visitor. And the auto electricians of Leyland, Preston, who are still doing it properly.

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The Old Car Lady is joined by Andy from My Dad’s Car, the podcast that asks a very simple question with a very big answer: what car started it all?

They talk dads, workshops, car magazines, childhood passenger-seat memories, lockdown podcasting, Porsche side profiles, Halfords friendships, and why the car bug is so often passed down through people rather than horsepower figures. Andy shares the story of his dad’s trim shop, the cars that came and went, and the primrose yellow E-Type that still sits in the memory, even if not in the garage.

Featured Stories

The Podcast That Started In Lockdown: Andy explains how My Dad’s Car grew out of lockdown, Clubhouse, Instagram Lives, working from home, and the loss of his dad. What began as an idea became a place for people to talk about the parents, memories and cars that shaped them.

The Trim Shop Childhood: Andy’s dad was a car trimmer, with a flat above the shop and a workshop full of interesting cars. Visits often meant one question: “What cars have you got in?” Sometimes there was even a quick trip round the block.

The Primrose Yellow E-Type: One of the big memories is a 1967 Series 1½ Jaguar E-Type roadster, taken in as payment, restored, and later sold before classic prices went wild. A proper childhood hero car, even if owning one now is another matter entirely.

The Cars People Go Back For: Sam and Andy talk about the emotional pull of the cars we grew up with. The Beetles, Escorts, Sunbeams, Sierras, Minis, Golfs and family cars that were ordinary once, but become precious because of who was driving them.

The Last Of The Analogue Cars: MX-5s, MR2s, early Golfs, Polos, Saxos, Civics and Boxsters all get a mention as Sam and Andy wonder whether the 1990s and early 2000s cars could become the next big classic scene.

EVs, Range Anxiety And The Future Of Car Love: From Teslas on the school run to smart motorways, scrappage schemes and driver aids, the conversation turns to what today’s children will remember. Will they fall for a neighbour’s EV, or will classic car meets, social media and real driving experiences keep the old-car bug alive?

A Nod To

My Dad’s Car podcast

Andy and John, who have now recorded more than 100 episodes about the cars, parents and stories that got people into motoring.

Toyota MR2 raffle at Raffall: two free entries with code MR2POD. 51,000 miles, 11-month MOT. Proceeds to Dogs Trust.

https://raffall.com/bring_your_trailer_classics

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The Old Car Lady is back with Tim Ashworth of Stockley Classics, and this time Tim has brought the archive: the original 1980 Austin Metro dealer launch pack, brochures, mechanic notes, a Metro Plus brochure even Tim had forgotten he had, and a cassette unplayed for 45 years.

They go through it all page by page. The Union Jack campaign, the 9X prototype that never was, the Applejack and Peridot colours that almost nobody ordered, the asymmetric rear seat brochure with its pop-up pages, and British Leyland’s claim that the Metro does 83 miles per gallon at a steady 30. Tim calls that one.

The Dealer Pack That Survived: One pack per dealer, not for customers, sent in October 1980 to prepare the showrooms for launch night. Launch schedule, marketing order forms, mechanic guidance notes, Union Jack tease materials and a cassette. Tim’s is intact. The cassette has never been played.

The 9X That Never Was: Issigonis designed a Mini successor in 1968 with a hatchback and advanced engine. BL killed it. Ten years later the Metro arrived instead, redesigned after customer clinics rejected the original styling mule.

Applejack, Peridot and the Colours Nobody Ordered: Applejack, Snapdragon, Peridot, Cinnabar, Vermillion. Strobe seats colour-coded to match. Almost none were ordered in significant numbers. The Metros that survive are mostly red, white and blue.

Metro Plus: The Brochure Tim Forgot He Had: Bucket seats, short shift, spot lamps, Ronal wheels: a separate package on top of a standard Metro, almost a homage to the Cooper S. Tim found it mid-conversation and had forgotten he had it.

83 Miles Per Gallon at a Steady 30: The launch brochure claims 83 mpg at a steady 30. Sam asks Tim whether he is having that. He is not.

Stockley Classics at stockleyclassics.com

Rover 100, Ford Street Ka, 18,000-mile Vauxhall Corsa B and a Rover Mini RSP. Find Tim on Facebook. YouTube channel incoming.

Toyota MR2 raffle at Raffall: two free entries with code MR2POD. 51,000 miles, 11-month MOT. Proceeds to Dogs Trust

https://raffall.com/bring_your_trailer_classics

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The Old Car Lady is back with Honest John Dixon for Part 2, going deeper into the South London motor trade of the 60s and 70s: the characters, the criminal crossover and the stories that didn’t make it into Part 1.

John bought an XJ6 in decorating overalls with a suitcase of cash, kept a shotgun behind his desk and knew the fraud squad detective who investigated him personally. This is what the motor trade actually looked like.

Never Judge a Book by Its Cover: John walked into a Hendon showroom in his decorating overalls with a suitcase containing 50 grand. The salesman told him he couldn’t afford the XJ6 in the window. John counted out three grand in tenners and fives on the desk. He drove it home that afternoon and slept with his bed by the window to keep an eye on it.

The Shotgun Behind the Desk: Four men turned up at John’s Bury Road pitch looking to rob him. He put the shotgun on the desk and told them he only had one cartridge but one of them was staying. He has never seen three men run so fast. The gun was empty.

Going Straight in the Motor Trade: John did his stints inside, used the time to read and learn chess, then went straight into the trade. His view: you could earn more as a straight motor dealer than doing anything else.

The Fraud Squad, the Rolls-Royce and the Apology: A mis-typed chassis number brought the fraud squad down convinced John was ringing cars. When they realised it was a DVLA error the detective sergeant bought his wife flowers to apologise. He is now a chief inspector.

Rating Girls on Cars and Reading the Room: In the pub John and his mates rated women by which car they reminded them of. On the forecourt he switched accents and approaches mid-conversation depending on who he was talking to.

Why the man in the Rolls is probably less wealthy than the man in the Cortina. Why zeroing a clock is less dishonest than knocking miles off it. Why the motor trade was the cleanest route from a shady past to a legitimate fortune. And why the Long Good Friday is about 80% accurate.

• Was the motor trade genuinely intertwined with London’s criminal world? John says yes, but frames it as history. The motor trade offered a clean route to legitimate earnings for people who’d been operating in the grey. Most of them took it.
• Could you really tell who someone was by what they drove? John’s answer is no and yes. Never judge a book by its cover, but you could read the room. The man who owned his Cortina outright was often worth more than the man sweating over the Roller payments.
• What made South London’s motor trade different from Manchester’s? The characters were different but the mechanics were the same. Cash, trust, the ability to sell a teacup without a handle. John and Sam both agree the camaraderie that existed between dealers across the country is gone.

Part 1 of Sam’s conversation with Honest John Dixon, S1E35, which covers how John got into the trade, the Sid James Rolls-Royce and James Hunt’s car on the forecourt. R. Clarke Motors, still trading today with John’s son Chris. And Dave Ackrinian, now a chief inspector, who John says is one of the good ones.

Watch on YouTube: Part 2 Video 1 and Part 2 Video 2

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