Stondon a year on

It has now been over a year since the Stondon Motor Museum closed its doors for the last time and the fuss has started to die down, so this seems an appropriate time to look at what became of the former exhibits following the much-anticipated disposal auction. Many have not yet reappeared and are hopefully undergoing restoration, but others were rapidly listed on eBay in the hope of a quick profit, and those that were not included in that auction have recently started to come to light. It is surprising how many were purchased by dealers rather than private buyers, considering the high prices that left little room for profit, but the classic car market seems to be on a high at the moment and the Stondon collection no doubt benefitted from this euphoria.

A yellow Reliant without Trotters signwriting! It didn't take long for the inevitable to happen.

Stondon may have had the only yellow Reliant van in the world not to have succumbed to 'Trotters Independent Traders' signwriting. Sadly this didn't last: just two days after the auction, the buyer listed it on eBay, having made no effort whatsoever to get it running or even to refit the parts that had been removed, but having found time to apply some Trotters graphics to justify the much higher price as a 'business opportunity'. That seems a strange set of priorities to me as surely anyone looking to start such a business hiring out a Trotter van would want a roadworthy example. As a Supervan III, it is at least the correct model though, many later Robins and Rialtos having been done up as horribly inauthentic Trotter 'replicas'.

The Hillman Hunter was one of the bargains of the auction and sold for just £500. The buyer did well out of this, quickly listing it on eBay in unchanged condition without even unloading it from his transporter and selling it for triple the hammer price. Another 30% in auctioneers' fees and VAT, plus transport costs and eBay fees, mean it would have owed him a fair bit more than that figure, but even so this is a very healthy profit that probably doubled his money for little effort. That car did seem unusually cheap compared with the rest though and I don't know why.

Bought for £500 (plus fees), sold for £1500. Not a bad result.

A substantial number of exhibits, sadly including the unique Rover Scout that I had hoped would find a home with a Metro enthusiast, were purchased by an Anglesey-based dealer and immediately readvertised on eBay at much higher prices. No effort at all seems to have been made to justify this mark-up as they were still in the exact condition in which they left the museum, and the listings were illustrated with photos taken on trailers outside the auction house, so they didn't even wait until they had got home before advertising their purchases! One has to wonder at the motives here: if no one was prepared to outbid this bidder at a well-publicised auction whose results are publicly available, why would they almost immediately pay a lot more for the exact same cars from a dealer in a less convenient location, knowing how much he paid for them?

Not all attempts at rapid profiteering succeeded though. The Peugeot 104 was bought from Brightwells for £1300, given an MoT and quickly entered in a Coys sale, a risky strategy as the typical clientele of a high-end auction house who routinely deal in cars worth hundreds of thousands were unlikely to show much interest in a grotty old Peugeot. Not surprisingly the gamble failed to pay off when it sold for just £1180, which once the fees and costs are accounted for is a substantial loss. Opinion of marque experts is that the latter figure is top money for one of these, so the original buyer had already paid over the odds even before trying to make a profit. The silver lining is that the new owner is apparently a well-known figure on the Peugeot club scene so the car did eventually find a good home.

This rare Rover could be yours for seven grand. Tempted?

Another dealer in Warwickshire purchased several cars and is now advertising them on eBay, current listings comprising the Ginetta G4, Lea Francis and Rover P6 estate. Unlike the one on Anglesey, this buyer has at least shown a bit more professionalism by putting some effort into preparing his purchases for resale, taking decent photographs and waiting some time after the auction before listing them. In the background of the photos of the Rover can also be seen the Lagonda and the Triumph Stag, which haven't yet been advertised. The former at least is likely to require considerable work, being a massively complicated car that had sat in a leaking building for years. Rumour has it that both invalid carriages were bought from the auction by an American collector, so these won't be seen in the UK again but the buyer must be very enthusiastic to consider the shipping costs worthwhile.

Just 7000 miles from new and now in the safe hands of a collector.

It isn't all gloom and doom though and a few exhibits have resurfaced in good homes. One of the gems of the collection, the one-owner 7000-mile Yugo 45, was actually sold before the auction to a connoisseur of low-mileage 1980s family cars, where it has several other Yugos and much else of interest for company. A photo of the Vauxhall Victor FE at a show recently appeared on Flickr, so this one is clearly now roadworthy again and being enjoyed by its new owner after so many years entombed in the museum. Given their generally poor condition, it is unlikely that many of the exhibits could have been made road-legal immediately, but hopefully others may follow these in the near future as their owners complete the sometimes extensive recommissioning work needed to bring them back to life once more.

Although the June 2015 Brightwells auction was advertised as a disposal sale of the entire collection, this wasn't entirely accurate as at least fifty cars were still on site almost a year after closure. Several were entered in another Brightwells sale in March 2016 and a few more will be sold at a further 'modern classics' auction on 23rd June, while others have recently been advertised on eBay with photos clearly taken inside the museum buildings. The seller is a dealer called WJF Cars based in nearby Hitchin, and making a few connections suggests this business is also owned by museum owner Chris Saunders and these cars were retained by him. Other exhibits, not yet advertised and presumably being prepared for sale, can be seen in the background, some of which haven't moved from where they were displayed, and WJF also appear to be holding a few of their modern stock on the museum site.

The 'All Aggro' nickname is probably true of this filler-laden wreck. Doesn't look too bad from here though.

Some work does seem to have been done on those auctioned in March as many were sold with new MoTs that had been gained since the museum closed. Those that are left mainly seem to be the more modern cars that aren't considered true classics and the undesirable dregs in the poorest condition, some of which I suspect may end up getting scrapped. The Austin Allegro for instance may have looked alright from a distance, but I remarked that the bottom half of it seemed to be made mostly of filler so it really isn't a viable proposition. Many of these cars had been taken off the road long before they appeared in the museum and would probably otherwise have been scrapped then, so years of further deterioriation will have done them no good and it would be a brave or foolish person who takes them on.

Poor old Citroen. Outside storage really hasn't been kind to it.

The cars advertised by WJF have included some of these rougher examples, which are described as 'spares or repairs' but realistically are only suitable for the former and are very unlikely ever to see the road again. Among them is the Citroen CX, whose description as a 'museum exhibit' is rather euphemistic as this poor car has not been used since 1999 and has spent much of that time dumped outside and exposed to the elements. Members of the Autoshite forum had a good look at this on the final open weekend and concluded it was beyond hope, a shame as it looked quite decent when it first arrived all those years ago. Nonetheless, it sold for more than £800 assuming the winning bidder completes the deal.

The Mini looked extremely rotten but sold for over £500 and may live again given the excellent spares availability and cult following for these cars. The kindest thing to do with the Wolseley 16/60 though would probably be to banger race it and put the poor old thing out of its misery: the chrome, glass and interior trim may be useful spares but the bodywork is shot and the engine seized so it is well beyond restoration and there are much better examples available. According to Brightwells, the Bentley S1 sold at last year's auction has been stripped of its rotten body and the running gear is being used to construct a special, so although not saveable as-is it will at least live on in some form.

Death in a blaze of glory on the banger track might be the kindest fate for this knackered Wolseley.

Not everything is terminal though and there are a few exceptions among those that remained. The Golf cabriolet, which had an MoT when I visited, was still in good condition as it hadn't been in the museum very long; it was listed as a classified advert for £6,000 and appears to have sold. The Mazda MX-5, a rarer original UK car rather than a grey import Eunos, seemed a decent buy at just £350, being advertised as drivable but with some damage to the front nearside corner that was carefully hidden when it was on display. With the enthusiastic following these cars have, it doesn't look an especially difficult repair, or would be a useful source of spare parts and the buyer could probably get their money back by breaking it.

Of the commercial vehicles, the infamous ZIL missile launcher has yet to reappear after being withdrawn from the auction as the missile was allegedly still live, a worrying thought given the museum's proximity to an active RAF base! Flickr comments suggest the 1926 AEC bus was an impulse buy by someone from the Earl of Plymouth's estate with the intention of using it for wedding hires. That seems something of a pipe dream given the enormous amount of work required to get this elderly and neglected vehicle up to Class VI PSV standard and all the complex licensing implications that go with it, and so far it just appears to have stood in open storage since purchase. As the oldest non-London AEC bus in existence, it would be a shame if this was lost to the preservation movement but its future looks a bit bleak at present.

A viable prospect for weddings? Not without a lot of work.

It is often said of museums that they are sad places where cars go to die, and that was certainly true of Stondon. Despite their best intentions, their exhibits really weren't very well looked after and were deteriorating rapidly, but the closure has at least allowed some of them a new chance at life with enthusiastic owners. It is a shame that so many interesting vehicles ended up with buyers whose only interest seemed to be in turning a quick profit, but that's the way it goes with a no-reserve auction. It will certainly be interesting to keep a continued eye on the sales sites, forums and classic car shows to see what other former Stondon vehicles turn up in new homes. If you find one or own one, I'd be very interested to hear about it in the comments.