6 great Brits coming to the Bonhams|Cars Revival sale

There’s a distinctly British feel to this year’s catalogue, with Aston Martin, Jaguar, Lotus, Morgan and other locally-made machinery featuring heavily. Choosing our top six Brits wasn’t easy, but we leaned into the esoteric for this selection. Will one of them temp you into bidding?

1960-2000 Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato Sanction III Coupé

Estimate: £700,000-£1million

Starting with a car that has a Goodwood connection — of sorts. The original Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato made its racing debut at Goodwood in 1961 when Stirling Moss brought the car home in third place. Two months later, two were entered in the Le Mans 24 Hours but they only ran for three hours. A return to Goodwood for the Tourist Trophy was more successful, as the two cars won the Team Prize for their respective third and fourth places.

In 1987, Aston Martin commissioned marque specialist R.S. Willimas to revive the model by upgrading four DB4 rolling chassis to DB4GT specification. Williams was running Aston Martin’s World Sportscar Team at the time, which meant the Zagato project was put on hold for a year. The cars were shipped to Zagato’s facility in Italy for the hand-crafted bodies to be made before returning to Williams for final assembly. The four cars were made between 1989 and 1991 and designated ‘Sanction II’.

There were however two spare bodies made by Zagato, and when Williams learned of their existance he approached Aston Martin Chairman Walter Hayes for permission to build two more cars. These ‘Sanction III’ cars were completed in 2000, and this car is one of them. It has been a one-owner car and now has 45,000 miles under its belt. It comes with a bulging history file and is recognised by the Aston Martin Owners’ Club and listed on the Zagato registry.

1948 Healey Elliott Sports Saloon

Estimate: £60,000-£80,000

This 1948 Healey Elliott has been in the same ownership since 1963. Founder Donald Healey won the 1931 Monte Carlo Rally for Invicta and had been employed as an engineer by Triumph before establishing his own company in 1945. The Elliott, named after the coachbuilder responsible for its appearance, was once the fastest closed four-seater production car with a top speed of 110mph.

There were 101 built (alongside 64 Westland roadsters), and this one was driven by Count Giovanni ‘Johnny’ Lurani in the 1948 Mille Miglia. A mechanical failure hampered Lurani and co-driver Guglielmo Sandri’s attempt, but they still completed the event and managed an average speed of 64.6mph. It was enough to win the Touring class and secure 13^th place overall.

A restoration was completed in 2016 by Healey specialist Warren Kennedy of Classic Restorations, and the car was subsequently featured in a three-car Healey group test in Octane magazine. While Healey is best know for its collaboration with Austin for 1960s sportscars, the Elliott represents a significant part of the company’s history — and this example all the more so thanks to its class-winning competition pedigree.

1966 Costin-Nathan 1-Litre GT Ultra-Lightweight

Estimate: £140,000-£180,000

There’s nothing that looks quite like the Costin-Nathan GT. De Havilland aerodynamicist Frank Costin was persuaded to design cars by his brother Mike who worked at Lotus, and the first Costin-penned body was for Lotus. He then also created shapes for Vanwall and others, and lent half his name to Marcos along with co-founder Jem Marsh.

The Costin-Nathan racer was conceived in 1965 as an ultra lightweight open-top racing car. Costin designed the plywood-skinned chassis and glassfibre body while racing driver Roger Nathan supplied a modified Hillman Imp engine and transaxle. It was revealed at the 1966 Racing Car Show, and the GT version followed with the aspiration to enter the 1967 Le Mans 24 Hours. It was completed just three weeks before the race, leaving time for a single test session at Snetterton. Sadly, mechanical ails prevented a finish at Le Mans but the open-top car achieved international success.

A total of 18 Costin-Nathans were built in Roger Nathan’s London workshop, and this one was re-emerged in 2018 when it was bought by Nathan. It has been subsequently restored, the work including dealing with a woodworm to bring it back to track fitness. This rare and unusual car has to be one of the most eye-catching machines in the Bonhams|Cars Revival Sale.

1933 Morgan-JAP Super Sports

Estimate: £24,000-£28,000

One of the more affordable lots is this 1933 Morgan Super Sports, but it’s no less intriguing for its more modest estimate. A three-wheeler may not be the most obvious competition machine, but low weight was something Morgan capitalised on. HFS Morgan himself won a Gold Medal in the 1911 London-Exeter-London Reliability Trial, and the following year marked the inaugural cyclecar race at Brooklands.

This Super Sports was purchased by its vendor from the last owner listed on the old style logbook. It came having been reduced to component form, but all parts were present for re-assembly and it was restored between 2006 and 2010. The sole modification is a foot-operated throttle. In the decade and a half since returning to the road, the car has covered just 824 miles getting to and from local car shows.

1969 Piper GTR

Estimate: £120,000-£160,000

The Piper Car Company built two GTRs to contend the Le Mans 24 Hours, but in the event one of them made it to La Sarthe — and this is that car. The other example had a 2.0-litre engine as opposed to the smaller 1.3 found amidships in the Le Mans entrant. It was to be driven by Tim Lalonde and John Burton, the former having experience in the iconic endurance race having driven a Mini Marcos there in 1967.

He was behind the wheel when the untried GTR was taken out for official practice, where he achieved a promising 164mph. Ultimately, though, the car was ineligible to enter, the authorities reasoning that only Lalonde had taken part in the practice session. That left the way clear for French-made Alpines...

Ownership of the GTR passed to Lalonde to clear a debt but he soon sold it. It was raced extensively in America before being retired from competition in the 1990s. In around 2005, when the car was still original (barring a change of colour), it was stripped, restored and made an appearance at that year's Goodwood Festival of Speed. It is now being offered by the vendor, who has owned it since 2011, and is fitted with a 1600cc Piper-tuned Lotus Twin-Cam engine.

1956 Jaguar Mark VII

Estimate: £40,000-£50,000

This Jaguar Mark VII raced at the first ever St. Mary’s Trophy race, which took place at the 2000 Goodwood Revival. It had been acquired earlier that year by the vendor as a one-owner road car, before being converted to competition specification by Racing Green to evoke the cars raced by the likes of Stirling Moss to such effect in the first years of British saloon car racing.

In that outing at Goodwood in 2000, the owner shared the car with Le Mans racer Mike Salmon. He would subsequently return to Goodwood to race the same car, and also competed with it at Spa-Francorchamps. While Salmon stopped racing in 2010, the car continued to be campaigned until last year, including an outing with Oliver Bryant at the 82^nd Members’ Meeting.

During its long competition life, this Mark VII has been maintained and upgraded, and now has a 3.8-litre triple Weber-fed straight six and disc brakes. Who will be next to race it at Goodwood?

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