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De Dion-Bouton on sale at auction
Wednesday 3rd November 2010, 2:42PM GMT.
A Victorian car which cost £150 new more than 100 years ago could fetch up to £60,000 at auction after it was found in Shropshire.
The 1900 De Dion-Bouton four and a half/six hp vis-a-vis – the Mini of its time – was found in Shrewsbury about 40 years ago.
Auctioneers Bonhams said the car was “discovered in Shrewsbury in the mid-1960s by the current vendor’s brother-in-law and for the next few years was jointly owned by the two men, until sole ownership passed to the vendor in 1969″.
The car cost £150 new which in 1900, during the final days of Queen Victoria’s reign, was roughly three years’ wages for some skilled workers.
Now more than a century later the car is expected to sell for between £50,000 and £60,000 at Bonhams in London on Friday.
A spokesman for Bonhams said: “The names of De Dion and Bouton are inextricably linked with the pioneer years of the motor car. Early De Dions were rear engined and of the vis-a-vis type, where the passengers sat facing the driver.”
In 1900, when the Shrewsbury car was built, De Dion-Bouton was the world’s largest car maker and produced 400 cars and 3,200 engines that year. But only about 20 De Dion-Boutons have survived.
Experts say it was comparatively cheap to run a De Dion-Bouton in the early 1900s.
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Don’t know how many of these cars are around, but a S’bury solicitor Mr Corser owned one in the 1960′s and my Dad Ted Wallis, helped restore it. At the time Dad worked for the West Midland Motor Co and another co-worker Fred …. also worked on the car. Mr Corser also had a beautiful Maudsley car which I think was a later car than the De Dion.
We left S’bury in 1966 for NZ and my father died some years ago.
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