What you need to know about SA's first international classic car auction

The Concours South Africa Auction, conducted by Coys from London, will be headlined by 50 cars from The Plit Portfolio which will be auctioned on the Saturday evening of the three-day Concours South Africa classic car event.

Said Concours South Africa co-organiser Greg Marucchi: “The Coys catalogue that is in preparation right now will be distributed electronically to 25,000 of its clients internationally and there will be international on-line bidding from enthusiasts all over the world, on the night, as well as bidding on the floor at Steyn City.”

The Plit Portfolio

The collection of cars being put up for auction by Johannesburg-based arch-enthusiast Wayne Plit represents just a small portion of his collection that began in the late 1980s.

Highlights of The Plit Portfolio

A 1935 Fox & Nicholl Singer Le Mans 2-litre Special. This is one of only three Singer cars ever built by the Fox & Nicholl Race Car Company. The three cars had body numbers LM11, LM12 and LM13. This is LM11 and is evidently the only surviving car.

It apparently raced at the 1934 Le Mans and in various major UK events, until being brought to South Africa in 1938 by an RAF aircraft rigger on contract to the SAAF, to re-rig the SAAF Glouster Javelin bi-planes. It was then sold to a local Singer expert in 1965 and subsequently in 2007 a collector in Cape Town, prior to being incorporated into the Plit Portfolio.

An original un-restored 1968 Ford Shelby Mustang GT 500. This car still has its original paint, upholstery and trim, and was imported to South Africa 48 years ago. Plit hopes it never undergoes a restoration.

A 1950 Jaguar XK120. This is the oldest known Jaguar XK120 in South Africa, finished in a beautiful off-white colour with red interior. This is the model that made Jaguar’s reputation for offering extremely fast sports cars at an affordable price.

The chassis was completed in 1950 and delivered to a Mrs Catherine Elaine Reid-Walker in Staffordshire in the UK. It was then exported to South Africa by Mr Reid-Walker who was a Scottish businessman on a six-month tour in our country. The car left South Africa in May 1951 and returned to England where it competed in the ninth Scottish Rally, still sporting its South African plates, and where it finished third overall! It eventually returned to South Africa and appeared at the Motoring Memories event in Johannesburg in the 1970s.

A 1990 Porsche 964 RS N-GT. This is an extremely-focused racing car with its bare-metal interior, strengthened and seam-welded shell, alloy front boot lid, thinner glass, and FIA welded-in roll cage. It sports Recaro race seats covered in flame-retardant Nomex, a Schroth race harness, plumbed-in fire extinguisher and an on-board cut-off switch. It also just happens to be road legal!

It is fitted with a very powerful naturally-aspirated race-tuned and honed 3,8-litre flat-six Porsche engine, close-ratio gears with steel synchromesh, asymmetrical limited slip differential, lightweight flywheel, button clutch, and lowered and stiffer suspension. It was brought to South Africa by Bruce Joelson, who was famous at the time for heading up Elna Sewing Machines in this country, and sponsoring SA Superbike champ Dave Petersen.

A trio of genuine Mini Cooper S cars. Alec Issigonis’s friend John Cooper, owner of the Cooper Car Company and designer and builder of Formula One and rally cars, saw the potential of the basic Mini, introduced in 1959, for competition. Issigonis was initially rather reluctant to see the Mini in the role of a performance car.

But after Cooper approached BMC management, the two men collaborated to create the Mini Cooper. The Austin Mini Cooper and Morris Mini Cooper debuted in September 1961.

The car featured performance-orientated engine internals with twin SU carburettors and a close-ratio gearbox, as well as front disc brakes, uncommon at that time in a small car.

A more powerful version, dubbed the Cooper ‘S’ was developed in tandem and released in 1963. There were three S versions built to homologate them for the prevailing engine capacity classes in circuit racing, namely the 970 cc, the 1071 cc and the 1 275 cc models. All three were offered for sale to the public.

On offer at the Concours South Africa auction is an appropriately concours-condition Cooper S Mk 1, a Cooper S Mk 1 1275 and a Cooper S Mk 2.

Other cars, in brief, include a 1964 Ferrari 365GT 2+2 RHD, eight Porsches, a Maserati Zagato Spider, five Lancias including a RHD 16V Integrale, four Lotus cars, a rare Renault Alpine A110 1600S, a trio of BMW Alpina models, a trio of Fiat 500 “Cinquecentos”, a 1961 Alvis TD21, a BMW Z1, a Morgan Aero 8 and many, many more.

A number of other South African enthusiasts have shown interest in putting some of their classic cars up for auction. Interested parties can contact Paul Kennard on moc.acirfahtuossruocnoc@luap or Greg Marucchi on moc.acirfahtuossruocnoc@gerg.