The Best of the 2014 Blogs

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The Best of the 2014 Blogs

Throughout this year we have been posting articles about interesting cars being auctioned at Turners or intriguing, weird or funny news stories. Here are some of our favourites of the year. Click the hyper-links to read the original posts.

Damaged supercars

It seems we can’t get enough of stories involving drivers with more money than driving talent. Who can forget the Ferarri Italia 458 with its severely broken nose inflicted before it had even been registered for the road? Or the Aston Martin Rapide that argued with a lamppost, and lost, badly? But our favourite was a bit different. It didn’t involve a supercar and the driver was experienced when it came to speed. His accident in a race car required the services of a rescue helicopter to save his life. His decision to donate the proceeds of the sale of his race cars to the rescue helicopter organisation made it a rare ‘feel good’ damaged car story.

Interesting Cars at Auction

It’s not all Commodores, Corollas and Civics at Turners car dealers. We often see some cool, old, strange, desirable or expensive cars passing through the auction lanes. Some of our favourites were the hugely popular 1948 Ford F series truck with the custom paint job which ended up selling for $36100. Then there was the gorgeous 1970 Daimler Limo that we sold for the Christchurch City Council. The ex mayoral limo sold for $32109 with all proceeds going to the Christchurch earthquake mayoral relief fund. There was the 1922 Rolls Roycewith the shady recent past we couldn’t talk about and the historic 1955 Holden that sold for $11200. But the most popular story was the one involving a simple, but cute, bright green Mini that, to the best of my knowledge, didn’t even sell.

Interesting International Car stories

Many of the stories that we cover involve cars overseas. There was the sale of Joe Strummer’s ’63 Thunderbird that sold on Ebay for a very reasonable price, the million dollar Easy Rider Harley auction and the touching story of a man being reunited with the E-type Jaguar that was stolen from him 47 years earlier. But a favourite story was about the original inspiration for the James Bond car. The gadget filled 1954 Aston owned by a friend of Ian Flemming’s neighbour clearly left its mark on the Bond creator.

The Silly Stories

Of course there were the crazy, bizarre and funny stories like the drive through funeral parlour, the old couple flipping their Honda Jazz, New Zealand’s high taxi fares and everyone’s favourite, the blow-up sex doll being used to sell a scruffy old car on Ebay.

We’ll be back with more next year. Merry Christmas!