A Hull of an auction

How could any car lover ever forget that famous moment in 2014 when Jaguar Land Rover announced they had purchased the entire car collection amassed by dentist Dr James Hull for a rumoured £100 million? This was believed to be the country's largest private collection and consisted of no less than 543 cars, which Dr Hull would only sell as one lot as he wanted it to remain intact with the new owner. Four years on, there was much excitement when news broke in February that a hundred surplus vehicles from this collection would be sold in a dedicated 'Affordable Classics' sale by Brightwells at Bicester Heritage on 21st March.

Just a small selection. Not what you might have expected from Dr Hull's collection.

I unfortunately wasn't able to attend in person but I've crunched some numbers and come up with my analysis of the auction. All figures quoted are the hammer prices, to which VAT and a 10% premium had to be added so the final costs were significantly higher.

Dr Hull's Jaguars were the main reason for buying the collection but a handful of others are now displayed at Gaydon and some have found a role in JLR's hire fleet for film work. The majority however have sat hidden from view on racks at the company's Classic Works on the former Rootes factory site in Ryton, and they've now realised they have just too many vehicles and not enough space to keep them all so the time had come for a clear out. While some have been quick to criticise JLR for going against Dr Hull's wishes, in fairness most of these cars have no relevance to the brand's history, are in poor condition and are not the sort of things the general public would want to see in a museum.

An impressive collection of Jaguars. JLR aren't selling any of these though.

Apart from the small selection at Gaydon and the green Allegro that appeared at the Festival of the Unexceptional, the rest of these vehicles had never been seen in public and in all honesty were never likely to be. The media naturally focused on the most valuable classics and JLR have never released a full list of exactly what was in the collection so very few people knew it contained things like this and the types and condition of the cars in the auction came as a huge surprise. It's highly incongruous that Jaguar Land Rover owned such things as Ladas, Citroens and an FSO, along with various other mundane classics in need of major restoration.

Incredible to think this Lada once rubbed shoulders with multi-million pound Rolls-Royces

If the alleged £100 million price is correct, that averages out at almost £200,000 per car. Given that the most expensive lot here sold for a tenth of that and most were in four-figure territory, there must be some extremely valuable cars among the 400-odd that remain with JLR. Dr Hull clearly had very eclectic tastes and there couldn't be more of a contrast between the Austin Metros in this sale and his exotic Rolls-Royces and £4 million Jaguar D-type. He had a particular fascination with estate cars and is said to have owned an example of almost every post-war estate sold in the UK, and also clearly liked motorhomes as ten such vehicles were sold here.

Who wouldn't want to go on holiday in a beige Morris Ital?

There were exactly a hundred cars and commercials, plus three caravans, two boats, a moped and the inevitable Sinclair C5, a staple of every car collection. Everything was sold with no reserve, yet there were no real bargains thanks to their famous background and the bidders' desire to own a piece of motoring folklore. Vehicle-wise, the cheapest lot set someone back a mere £110 but that bought them the least desirable thing in the sale, an old Elddis caravan. The lowest-priced cars were a pair of very sad FB Victor estates best suited for spares or a very brave restoration that sold for £300 apiece, a fraction of the £6,200 achieved by the much better third example.

Unlikely ever to see the road again but well worth £300 for parts

Duplication was rife, even among the rarer types, and it seems that when Dr Hull found a better example than the one he had, he would buy that but keep the not-so-good one alongside it. There were two Ford Zodiac Mark IV estates (£1,000 and £2,400) and a matching pair of Mercedes 320CE convertibles, one automatic (£14,000) and one less common manual (£15,000). The Austin A40 Sports is a very rare car but Dr Hull obviously owned three of them as one has been retained for display at Gaydon and two more were sold here; both are in similar condition but one made £14,000 and the other a mere £5,700 for some reason.

When did you last see an Austin A40 Sports? Dr Hull had three of them.

Dr Hull was clearly just a collector and not a restorer, surprisingly for someone of his obvious wealth. Many of these lots are in very poor condition and had been off the road for years even before they joined his collection; he had just kept them on static display and had no work done on them. The majority dated from the fifties to the early nineties and and the only pre-war car was a 1937 Austin Seven restoration project that made £11,200. The newest was a 2004 Rover 25 that someone paid £2,000 for, which seems an awful lot of money for a 14-year old Rover. The Riley RMB, nothing more than a rolling chassis with no bodywork or identity, went for a creditable £2,400, and the same money bought a much more complete lowlight Minor project.

Two grand is a lot of money for this old Rover, even with only 15,000 miles

British Leyland cars were in abundance, with no fewer than seven assorted Metros ranging from a basic Clubman to an MG Turbo, all with low mileages. Among others there were five Allegros, a pair of Princesses and four Marinas, all of which sold for between £1,000 and £4,000. Despite its poor condition, a genuine Morris Minor Million fetched £7,200 and the two J2 Paralanian motorhomes had very different fortunes, the Austin version making £1,100 while the Morris in need of major restoration achieved just £400. It was interesting to see the price gap between different variations of the same car, for instance the two standard MG Maestros went for £1,800 and £2,400 but the Turbo version made more than both of these combined at £5,400.

Maestro Turbos must be getting collectable as this one went for £5,400

Many of these cars would fit right in at the Festival of the Unexceptional and Hagerty obviously agreed as four were sold with guaranteed entries in the Concours de l'Ordinaire: the aforementioned FSO 125P estate (£1,300), a beige Citroen Visa (£1,200), a Vauxhall Victor FE estate (£1,700) and a yellow Marina coupe (£2,100). Most British marques were represented along with several Europeans, offbeat highlights including a Renault Caravelle (£5,400), a Borgward Isabella last used in 1975 (£7,100) and a dust-covered Goggomobil that reached £2,100 despite a complete absence of documents. Maybe the oddest cars in the sale were a pair of late-model Lada Riva estates, one of which has done just over 4,000 miles and never even made it to its first MOT before coming off the road. That made £1,500 with its slightly higher-mileage sister fetching £1,000, reflecting the increasing collectability of Ladas.

The Borgward is lovely and very rare but has been off the road a very long time

Top price went to a modern classic, a 2002 AMG Mercedes that sold for £20,600. The star cars were a rare Vauxhall Chevette HS (£11,000) and the unique Ferguson four-wheel drive Reliant Scimitar prototype (£13,000), impressive prices considering both have been off the road for a long time and will need a fair bit of work before they can be used again. Other significant results were achieved by a couple of unusual estates, a Vauxhall Velox Friary at £9,000 and a Rover P6 Estoura at £9,600. The very last lot of the day to be sold, the latter is said to be in very good condition and looks a better bet than the similar but much rougher example from Stondon that was advertised for £7,000 a couple of years ago.

The star lot, this is no ordinary Scimitar

It wasn't just vehicles though and there were plenty of smaller lots. Various boxes of assorted toys and models didn't raise a lot of money, but there were strong results among over a hundred pedal cars. The majority of these made healthy three-figure sums with the rarer ones breaking into four figures and costing more than some of their full-size counterparts. The top price here was achieved by a miniature electric Blower Bentley that someone felt was worth a massive £8,200, and at the other end of the scale bidding stalled on a child's motorbike at just £30, making it the cheapest lot in the whole sale. Finally, there was a collection of 15 large-scale remote-control aeroplanes that went for between £200 and £800, except for the Lancaster that was bid up to £1,800.

An awful lot of money for a plaything. Much cheaper than a real Blower Bentley though.

The contents of this sale reminded me very much of Stondon, a similar selection of mainly low-value everyday classics that have not been used for years and in many cases are in rather poor condition (even those with low mileages), something that came as a surprise to those who attended. There are the same issues with missing keys and paperwork, cars that aren't UK registered, and registrations no longer recognised by the DVLA, so getting them back on the road may not be an easy task. While some are close to being roadworthy and have been driven recently, most descriptions stated that Brightwells had made no attempt to even start the engines and they were sold strictly as non-runners.

No documents, not UK registered and needing a lot of work. Getting it roadworthy might be a challenge.

In all, 298 lots were sold for a total price of almost £470,000, which may seem like a lot but is a tiny fraction of the £100 million JLR allegedly paid for the collection. Average price per lot for the vehicles was just short of £3,500, not a bad figure all things considered. So what happens now the auction is over and these cars have all found new homes? Some of the rougher ones are realistically beyond economic repair but will nevertheless provide valuable spares. The rest will hopefully find their way back on the road sooner or later, but in some cases not for many years as they need complete restorations.

Perfectly Unexceptional. Hopefully we'll see it at Stowe in July.

The prices paid mean most have hopefully been bought by enthusiasts rather than dealers out to make a quick buck, but it didn't take long for the profiteering to start as by Saturday two of the lots, an Allegro and a Corsair, were already listed on eBay at inflated starting bids. Meanwhile, despite the health problems that caused him to dispose of this entire collection, rumour has it that James Hull has now started collecting again and has already amassed over a hundred vehicles. Some say his ability to create such a collection stands as a monument to how overpriced dentistry is in this country, but whatever your views there's no doubt his cars are part of motoring folklore and this auction was a unique opportunity to acquire a piece of history.