Wheels & Deals with The Old Car Lady

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.
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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.
A Nod To
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.
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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.
What You’ll Learn
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.
A Nod To
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.
📧 grangebaileys@gmail.com
💬 WhatsApp: 07405 813554
📸 Instagram: @the_old_car_lady
🎦 TikTok, Facebook and YouTube: The Old Car Lady
👍 The Old Car Lady Classic Car Community on Facebook
🔔 Subscribe: @Theoldcarlady on YouTube
This has been a Worth A Listen Production.

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.
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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.

A Nod To
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.
📧 grangebaileys@gmail.com
💬 WhatsApp: 07405 813554
📸 Instagram: @the_old_car_lady
🎦 TikTok, Facebook and YouTube: The Old Car Lady
👍 The Old Car Lady Classic Car Community on Facebook
🔔 Subscribe: @Theoldcarlady on YouTube
This has been a Worth A Listen Production.

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.
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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.

A Nod To
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.

📧 grangebaileys@gmail.com
💬 WhatsApp: 07405 813554
📸 Instagram: @the_old_car_lady
🎦 TikTok, Facebook and YouTube: The Old Car Lady
👍 The Old Car Lady Classic Car Community on Facebook
🔔 Subscribe: @Theoldcarlady on YouTube
This has been a Worth A Listen Production.

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.
Featured Stories
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.
What You’ll Learn
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.
Key Questions
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.
A Nod To
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/ 

📧 grangebaileys@gmail.com
💬 WhatsApp: 07405 813554
📸 Instagram: @the_old_car_lady
🎦 TikTok, Facebook and YouTube: The Old Car Lady
👍 The Old Car Lady Classic Car Community on Facebook
🔔 Subscribe: @Theoldcarlady on YouTube
This has been a Worth A Listen Production.