{"id":5379,"date":"2013-10-16T17:01:05","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T17:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=5379"},"modified":"2013-11-04T21:13:39","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T21:13:39","slug":"strike-a-light-real-life-matchbox-van-goes-under-the-hammer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/5379","title":{"rendered":"Strike A Light! Real Life Matchbox Van Goes Under The Hammer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A \u2018real life matchbox van, built in 1937 as an advertising vehicle for England\u2019s Glory matches, will go under the hammer on October 29th at Barons&#8217; sale next Sandown Park auction sale.<\/p>\n<p>The van, was based on a 1932 Austin Seven and is a fully-functioning, road-legal vehicle, although as this gloriously non-politically correct picture shows, it is quite a small vehicle:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5380\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5380\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5380\" alt=\"1937 Matchbox Van for sale\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/matchbox-van-sm.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/matchbox-van-sm.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/matchbox-van-sm-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5380\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This 1937 promotional Matchbox van was based on an Austin Seven and will be sold on October 29th, 2013, at an auction at Sandown Park.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It was comprehensively restored in the 1970s\/\u201980s, and is now due for a refresh, so is offered as a fascinating rolling restoration, with an estimated hammer price of \u00a312,000-\u00a315,000.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update 4 November 2013:\u00a0<\/strong>The Matchbox van sold at Sandown Park on October 29th for \u00a310,700 to a UK-based collector. Here&#8217;s a more recent picture of the van in question:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_5453\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5453\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5453\" alt=\"Real-life Matchbox Van\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/matchbox-van-2-sm.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"308\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/matchbox-van-2-sm.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/matchbox-van-2-sm-300x205.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-5453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The real-life Matchbox van sold for \u00a310,700 at auction in October 2013.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Other vehicles that may be of interest include a Group N 1996 Escort Cosworth rally car in road legal trim (estimate \u00a39,000 &#8211; \u00a311,000) and a 2007 Jaguar Sovereign 4.2 that was formerly used by the Royal Household and has every option under the sun, including some aimed at chauffeur-driven occupants, such as rear televisions, fold-away business tables and heated rear seats. There&#8217;s also a bizarre extra that allows rear seat passengers to electrically adjust the front passenger seat &#8212; so if \u00a0your &#8216;man&#8217; is using too much space in the front and you want to stretch our for a snooze in the back, you don&#8217;t have to condescend to speak to him &#8212; just hit the remote and slide his seat forward!<\/p>\n<p>Finally, there&#8217;s also a personal favourite of mine &#8212; a 1972 Saab 99, which is thought to be one of just 18 still registered in the UK. The Saab 99 was the forerunner of the classic 900, a car I could once have owned and didn&#8217;t &#8212; a decision I&#8217;ve regretted ever since&#8230; This particular model\u00a0has emerged from eight years in storage and is in excellent, unrestored, original condition. It offers a rare chance to obtain a superb, original collectors\u2019 car, at an estimate of \u00a33,500-\u00a34,500.<\/p>\n<p>For more details on all of the vehicles in the sale, visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.barons-auctions.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.barons-auctions.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A promotional model real-life Matchbox van will go under the hammer at Barons&#8217; auction at Sandown Park on October 29th, one of a host of rarely-seen classics on sale on the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1788,1789,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5379"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5382,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5379\/revisions\/5382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}