From a few grand to £200k: Rare Walsall Porsche up for auction
An exceptionally rare sports car bought new for a few thousand pounds 52 years ago is coming up for sale again at an auction next week – for a likely price of £200,000.
A previous owner, named as a W Kendrick of Walsall, paid a comparatively modest sum by today’s standards for the 1965 Porsche 911 ‘SWB’ Coupe back in the 1960s.
Although the average wage then was only £19 a week. Now, half a century later, the car’s value has rocketed.
The Walsall Porsche is valuable because it was only the second UK-supplied Porsche 911, which, according to London auctioneers Bonhams, makes it “an ultra-rare right-hand drive model” and “a much sought after First Series Model".
The car was built in July 1965,with the bulk of production going to America. So this model is rarer still by being an original right-hand drive car.
A spokesman for auctioneers Bonhams said: “Extensive research has failed to to uncover the whereabouts of the first UK-supplied Porsche 911 SWB Coupe, making this car possibly the earliest customer-delivered 911 still in existence.”
A Porsche historian has confirmed that the car is genuine.
When W.Kendrick took delivery of the gleaming new Porsche in 1965, it was comparatively inexpensive to run a car. In 1965, a gallon of petrol cost five shillings and tuppence, about 26p in modern money.
The 1965 Porsche 911 is expected to sell for between £170,000 and £200,000 at Bonhams in London on Saturday December 2.
