H&H Classics, the British collector car auction house, has announced its 2019 sales calendar, which includes a new format.
On February 2, the company will stage its first purely online live auction, and that sale will feature an unusual vehicle indeed — a 1985 Chrysler Le Baron Town & Country turbocharged woody station wagon formerly owned by American entertainer Frank Sinatra.
H&H announced the consignment on December 12, which would have been Sinatra’s 103rd birthday.
According to H&H, the car is perhaps the last vehicle Sinatra owned, an “undistinguished (and unexpectedly domestic)” wagon that was used as Sinatra was driven around Las Vegas during the last 10 years of his life.
The wagon will be sold along with copies of the certificate of title bearing Sinatra’s signature. The Nathan Golden named on the registration was Sinatra’s chauffeur, H&H noted.
H&H notes that Sinatra-owned vehicles have sold well at auction, including a 1989 Jaguar SJX and a 1956 Ford Thunderbird.
In regard to the online only sale, Iain Burt of the H&H management team noted, “At present approximately 30.6 percent of all sales take place on-line, which provides us with a strong foundation to introduced this exciting ‘live’ auction online format.”
H&H plans several such online only sales as part of its 2019 auction calendar, which offers a mix of online and traditional auction venue sales:
February 2 — online
March 2 — at National Motorcycle Museum
March 20 — at Imperial War Museum
April 10 — at Pavilion Gardens, Buxton
April 14-21 — online automobilia
May 4 — online
June 19 — at Imperial War Museum
July 24 — at Pavilion Gardens, Buxton
July 30 — at National Motorcycle Museum
Augus5 3 — online
September 1-8 — online automobilia
October 16 — at Imperial War Museum
November 2 — at National Motorcycle Museum
November 7 — online
November 17-24 — online automobilia
December 4 — at Pavilion Gardens, Buxton
Details for bidders or consignors regarding the online auctions are available on the H&H Classics website.
Well even old blue eyes could have bad days…one of them was when he bought this car. The only thing, and I do mean ONLY THING it has going for it is that it belonged to Frank Sinatra. Hard to believe and even a little disappointing to think that the leader of the Rat Pack drove a K Car – one with fake wood on it too. Damn, I thought I’d seen it all, I guess Deano and the rest of the boys were all laughing in their graves when Frank was being hauled around (alive) in this thing. Oh well, that’s life.
Alex Stephens: Sorry to rain on your parade, but obviously you never OWNED a K car. I had an AHB Police Patrol ’86 Reliant (bought new) for 20 years, and I loved it. It had excellent headroom; it was as reliable as a watch; it required only the most basic maintenance; and, might I say, configured as a Police Patrol car, it was the best sleeper of the 80’s. It had a/c declutch on full throttle, a lower axle ratio and a different transmission ratio that made it able to smoke the tires (Goodyear Eagle GT’s) in low gear and send the speedometer into the 6 o’clock position, or as the cop who pulled me over, "110 mph". I had contemplated engine-swapping a turbo LeBaron motor into it when some idiot wrecked it. So maybe Ol’ Blue Eyes had something you haven’t contemplated, because by this time Dino and the remaining Pack had all traded to pretty common cars…
Its hard to imagine that the voice himself had a car like this.Yet in the end it was his choice and he had every right to do so.Not every picture tells a story.