English

This early single-cylinder Swift was purchased by the vendor’s grandfather in 1931 from a farmer in Eversley, Berkshire. Since then, the car has completed no fewer than 57 London to Brighton Runs plus numerous other events and rallies. It has only failed to finish on four occasions, and in 1968 successfully completed the Run despite…

The English coachbuilder Hooper produced many types of bodies upon the Silver Wraith chassis, but among its rarest and most formal designs is the 7-passenger limousine, as offered here. Just 10 examples of these hand-wrought aluminum beauties were created between 1947 and 1951; the first was built for Lord Louis Mountbatten in his service as…

The rare car we offer was exported new to the U.S. in 1960 as an Ivory White Austin-Healey 3000 BT7 4-seater. As with many old sports cars, it fell into disrepair and was turned into a Fiberfab Jamaican in the late 1960s. These stylish sports coupe bodies, designed by Chris Beebe, were available for installation…

After creating some lightweight bodies on the Bentley Mark VI chassis, coachbuilding firm H.J. Mulliner was contracted to design and construct the R-type Continental prototype, affectionately named “Olga.” Exhaustive road testing resulted in modification of the gearbox to a direct-ratio top gear and a lowered rear-axle ratio for enhanced performance. These modifications provided high-speed touring…

Clothed in aluminum “saloon” bodywork by Milanese design house Carrozzeria Touring, Aston Martin chassis DB51681R is resplendent in Snow Shadow Grey over red Connolly leather. Delivered new to Mr. A. White on July 7, 1964, this 5-speed DB5 spent much of its life in the U.K. until it was purchased by Sir Sean Connery through…

This striking and impressive car is an archetypal example of its genre and makes exactly the statement that one expects when one conjures the idea of a vintage Bentley — a beautiful sports tourer with great physical presence. Thanks to the existence of the Cricklewood factory records and exhaustive work by historians, most notably Dr.…

Bolstered by the on-screen exploits of Sean Connery in the box-office hit “Goldfinger,” every man, woman, and child with a pulse yearned to own an Aston Martin DB5 in the mid-1960s. But it didn’t take long before the English marque’s premier grand tourer — and the remarkably similar DB6 that replaced it in 1965 —…

Pre-war development of the 6-cylinder Alvis culminated in the announcement in August 1936 of the 4.3-Litre, designed by the company’s distinguished Chief Engineer, Captain George Smith-Clarke. The 4.3-Litre was based on the 3½-liter Speed 25 introduced the previous year, powered by an enlarged version of Alvis’ new seven-bearing, overhead-valve engine producing 137 horsepower on triple…

As the copy of a letter from Ford Motorsport, signed by Bob Howe [Ford’s RS200 program sales chief] and dated October 15, 1991, indicates, this RS200 was sold new to a Swedish enthusiast for £57,498. It was one of the few RS200s to have been finished in dark red when it came off the production…

Arguably the most famous of all the rebodied Jaguar XK 120s, this solitary example by Carrozzeria Pinin Farina was dispatched new as a standard SE roadster to Max Hoffman (Jaguar’s U.S. East Coast distributor) in New York in May 1954. The accompanying Jaguar Heritage Trust certificate reveals that the car left the Browns Lane factory…