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An upgraded version of a popular 1980s family car that belonged to Princess Diana has sold for almost $764,000 at auction, a record for the model, after a bidding war broke out between British collectors and foreigners
Diana drove the black 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo for almost three years and was regularly photographed using it on trips to the posh London shopping areas of Chelsea and Kensington.
“This is a small moment in history, ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer said as he opened the bidding for 100,000 pounds ($117,000), an opening figure that already eclipsed the previous record for a similar, white car. sold last year. The final price, including a 12.5 percent buyer’s premium, was more than $850,000.
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The sale came just days before the 25th anniversary of a car crash in Paris that killed Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. She was not behind the wheel of that car, a Mercedes-Benz S-280, when it crashed at high speed on August 31, 1997.
The princess, and the memories that mark her life, have an enduring public appeal long after her death. Last year, a slice of her royal wedding cake to Prince Charles, 40 years old and probably unfit for consumption, went under the hammer at another auction, fetching around $2,000.
Those attending Saturday’s auction certainly seemed keen to keep a piece of UK history and a memento of the ‘People’s Princess’, cheering as bids came in from Coventry and Cheshire and booing as the leading bids went move abroad
“This will be like the Elgin marbles. It will have an embargo to be sent abroad,” joked the auctioneer, referring to a series of 2,500-year-old sculptures that are the subject of one of the disputes (Over the years, many have tried to persuade the British Museum to return them to Greece.)
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Classic car values have skyrocketed in recent years as people hunkered down during the coronavirus pandemic poured their wanderlust into other ventures such as cars, real estate and art.
Diana’s car was eventually sold to a buyer in a bucolic town in Cheshire, south of Manchester, which is favored by British Premier League soccer players.
The auctioneer described the vehicle as a “flawless example” of the Ford Escort, which was one of Britain’s best-selling cars of the 1980s. Known as the “people’s sports car”, it ranged from basic sports editions to fully-revamped sports editions.
It was a rare black version of the car, apparently ordered at the request of palace security officials who wanted Diana to drive a more discreet vehicle. She preferred to drive herself, with a bodyguard in the passenger seat.
It was also on sale on Saturday a black 1973 Rover P5 used to drive Margaret Thatcher to Buckingham Palace before her appointment as Britain’s first female Prime Minister and a 2015 Land Rover Defender that appeared in the 2015 James Bond film ‘Spectre’.
The Escort was one of several world car sales records broken on Saturday, the auction house said. Even the auctioneer looked surprised as the bidding rose: “£550,000 on the Ford Escort. I’ve never said that before.”