Vintage vehicles, tractors and steam engines fetch £1.4m at auction

Records tumbled as a huge collection of vintage vehicles, tractors and steam engines fetched a total of £1.4m at an East Anglian auction.

One of the 3,000 lots sold at Cheffins’ vintage machinery sale at Sutton, near Ely, on April 21, which fetched a total of £1.4m. Picture: Cheffins. - Credit: Cheffins

More than 3,000 lots went under the hammer at Cheffins' Cambridge Vintage Sale at Sutton, near Ely, which attracted classic machinery collectors and enthusiasts from across the country.

The headline lot of the day was a 1919 Albion Anglo-American Oil Company delivery lorry which sold for £60,900, which auctioneers said is the highest price paid for a vintage commercial vehicle in the UK for 'some considerable time'.

The lorry only had two owners from new, and was bought by the vendor in 1985, still in the Anglo American Oil Co livery. It was fully restored in 2011, including over £1,500 worth of gold leaf used to recreate the sign writing.

Another 'exceptional' lot was a 1907 Davey Paxman steam engine, which was ready to show and rally and sold for £98,700 – one of only a handful of traction engines of its kind known to still be in existence.

Cheffins’ vintage machinery sale at Sutton, near Ely, on April 21, made a total of £1.4m across 3,000 lots. Picture: Cheffins. - Credit: Cheffins

Of the 212 tractors available on the day, the top price went to a fully-restored 1966 Doe-130 which sold for £72,975. Ford and Fordson conversions were also popular with buyers with two restored Roadless examples selling for £53,550 for a 118 version and £31,500 for a 980 version.

Similarly, a 1979 County 7700-FOUR tractor which was consigned directly from a local farm sold for a record £25,725.

Also sold was a collection of six working models of tractors, balers and a combine harvester from constructor Roger Townshend. These took a combined total of £52,800, with the top price going to the Nuffield 10/60 model which achieved £16,500 – described as a 'stunning' result, as a life-sized example would have cost a sixth of that amount.

The automotive and motorcycle section also saw strong prices including a 1960 BMW R60 motorcycle and sidecar selling for £11,016, while a 1977 Ducati 900SS Special made £9,720.

Cheffins chairman Bill King said: 'Over 3,000 lots went under the hammer in the April heatwave and drew crowds of biblical proportions to what must be the busiest vintage sale hosted by Cheffins to date.

'There was a superb line up of tractors as well as classic cars, motorbikes, models and various other memorabilia items. Prices achieved were spectacular with a number of records broken for various items.'