From 19/2: 

For sale in Manchester in the UK is this lovely and pretty rare BMW 3200CS Coupe, designed by Bertone. This car was produced in between the legendary Type 503/507 and the 1960s 2800CS series. It was fitted with a V8 engine and capable of 125mph. Around 600 of these cars were produced.  It was based on the Type 503 chassis and is a very thin B-pillar, 2+2 coupe with an aluminium bonnet and bootlid.

This originally German car came to the UK in 1970 and was retired in 1974 with engine problems. The then owner bought all the parts for an engine rebuild but this never materialised. The car has been laid up in a garage since. As a result the body is in a not too bad state and can be easily restored. 

The blue interior looks pretty good still and the dash features the original Becker push button radio. The chrome bits are in an OK state except for the rear bumper which is badly corroded. The windscreen is chipped but a replacement can be sourced. It is a series 1 car. Series 2 cars had a chrome strip on the side of the body and no B-pillar at all.

In its day, this car was very expensive as it was mainly built by hand. It was never officially brought out in the UK. The side view of the car shows hints of the Alfa Romeo GT Junior by Bertone.  As mentioned, it is being auctioned on ebay UK. Reserve hasn’t been met with 4 days to go. Not a lot of bidders involved at first sight.

Originally the company had the intention of selling 20,000 cars but the Rancho became quite a trendy car and eventually well over 57,000 cars rolled out of the factory. It used most of the platform of the popular Simca 1100 and was front wheel drive. It had none of the off-road capabilities, but some special versions were fitted with a winch mounted on the front bumper, two moveable spotlights mounted on top of the scuttle panel, a roof-mounted spare wheel, … all features that contributed to the rugged off-road look.

This Sologne green car is a remarkable find in this condition. It is for sale here in Belgium, near Lièges. The seller wants EUR4200 for it.  It’s not cheap perhaps, but you will be hard pressed to find a car in as nice a condition as this one. As always, you can click on the pictures to get through to the original for-sale listing.

From 9/1:

The auction for this mint looking Beemer has less than 24 hours to run, and with the price only a grand under the Buy-it-Now price there is still a bargain to be had. Even though this car has nearly 90000 miles under the belt, from the pictures it looks absolutely stunning. Like a true wolf in wolfs clothing.

As quite a few on the UK roads, this car was imported from Germany, in 1999 to be precise. All these cars were left hand drive, although about 70 cars were converted into right hand drive by a BMW dealer. They have weaker braking capabilities though, which is not recommendable really on this “ultimate road/track car”. 

The engine is a 2.3-litre 4-cylinder unit that uses the head architecture from the BMW M1 and later M6 6-cylinder engines.  They are pretty bullet proof but the timing chain needs replacing at around 100,000 miles and this costs about £2-2.5k to fix. They are cheaper to maintain than other M-cars though and running gear is pretty much all standard 3-series.

This particular car has done less than 2000 miles in the last 3 years and has been kept under cover in a garage. It does feature a little bit of blistering under a windscreen corner but this is normal for these cars. Also the sunroof should be checked for rust forming as it’s another common area to go. 

The car is for sale on ebay UK out of County Durham. You can find it here. GBP9000 is a pretty good price in our opinion and we’re a bit surprised why nobody has actioned the Buy-It-Now earlier.  Below a shoot-out with the Lancia Delta, that other motorsport powerhouse.

When the 2-litre Turbo made its appearance they were quick as lightning and only a Porsche was faster. Even the later E30 M3 was slower in the 0-60 sprint. They were all left hand drive due to space restrictions with the exhaust manifold. 

Some of the cars feature “2002 turbo” decals on the front. This originated from the press cars who all featured the decals on the front spoiler in reverse script. Lots of owners have since done a similar thing and we think it’s pretty safe to say there are now more cars with the script than without.

Which brings us to this very original 2002 for sale on ebay UK out of Omagh, Northern Ireland. It is an ex Concours d’Elegance winner that has passed some of its life in an air chamber. It is pretty rare to find good looking examples still with first paint and going by the photos, this one looks pretty decent. Loads of owners have swapped the standard steel wheels for something else and these wheels certainly do the business.

We have seen these cars advertised for anything up to GBP50k over the last couple of years. Most seem to be selling for around GBP25000. They do seem to be appreciating rather fast, it must be said. Don’t get caught out by the lower current bid!

The SV stands for “Safety Vehicle” and a lot of the design incorporated safety features. It had an integrated rollcage, impact bumpers and side lights. A cigarette lighter has been omitted for safety reasons. The body is fiberglass and the car has gullwing doors that open up at the touch of a button. 

This particular one is an ex-museum car and is still on its original tyres. The first cars came with an AMC 360 V8 engine, but after supply problems the cars were fitted with a Ford 351 V8 Windsor (5.8 liters). This one comes with the Ford engine and it has done only 25,000 miles. You can find it for sale here on marktplaats.nl in Holland for a very reasonable EUR14,950. 

Between 1961 and 1965 they made about 150 cars based on the 1959 Porsche 356 Abarth. They had some different design features. Especially the rear lights and rear bumper combination looks quite funky. About 30 cars though were made entirely with Porsche 356 components. Engine, gearbox, brakes, interior, etc. All under a fibreglass Porsche replica body.

Then APAL decided to try a bit of motorsport and were quite successfull. No surprise really as they had Porsche mechanics and were about 300kg lighter than the Porsches themselves. Later on, after APAL had established a good relationship with Belgian VW importer d’Ieteren supplying them with chassis, they decided on making buggy body tubs and also had a brief spell making bodyparts for the Triumph Spitfire.

This particular car seems to have come up for sale a few times, and could be because of a too opportunistic asking price. It is still a first owner example and looks nice and original. The 1600cc S90 engine could do with a little updating maybe. 

We have mentioned before that in Belgium rear fog lights are compulsory equipment and on this particular car the added lights detract from the beautiful rear end with the very unusual bumper-rear light combination. We would try and work out something to restore the nice lines. 

The car is for sale in the SW of Belgium, it doesn’t mention a price unfortunately. Also to mention: there is a nice informative APAL club website with loads of information.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find much information about this car. It looks very pretty but would benefit from some restoration. It must be a mid to late 1950s design. It kinda looks like a compact Volvo P1800 (which came out in 1961). It has an aluminium body.

We really like the simple design of the rear end. The round tail lights would give it away that it was based on the Fiat 1100. The rounded rear windscreen is a nice feature of the design. The car is for sale for a whopping EUR50,000. If you have more information on theses cars, please email submit@classiccarhunter.com.

There is one partly patched up, blue car and a second car that can be used for spares. We have no idea about how complete this project is parts-wise. The seller wants €8500 for the two cars and he is located in Cosenza, Italy. There certainly aren’t too many of these cars around, and you get to have two! 

The engine is a 1089cc 4-cylinder and should be widely available through Italy. We assume that the car in the garage is the parts car. But upon closer inspection, especially of the side trim bits, we think this could be a “Slepping” version. Not so sure, but this could be a typo as the specification says it could have the seats flattened to make a sleeping bed. If anyone has any other input, please feel free to share.

With only a 85-90bhp 8V engine in a car like this, the looks are fare more menacing than the driving speeds one can achieve with it. If we’re not mistaken this is a 1600cc carburettor model. It is for sale here out of Limburg.

It looks great in red and with the black body kit and we prefer it with these GTI wheels over the later star shaped ones. It’s a petty the car isn’t the later version with the 16v engine as also used in the Golf GTI. The seller is open to offers.

In Italy we have found this lovely unrestored, one-owner, fifties Berline. It dates from 1957 and is a nice pale yellow. It is a Giulietta Berlina and was the second car to be released on Alfa’s Giulietta platform.

Alfa were used to making supercars. The Giulietta was the first mass-market production car. First came the Sprint (which became synonym for Coupe), then the Berlina, and after that the Spider. They were all three designed by different coachbuilders on the same chassis. Later on, there were also some special versions like the Sprint Speciale (SS) by Bertone and the Sprint Zagato (SZ).

This particular car is a completely original example with only 70k kms on the clock.  The engine is a 1290cc with 52bhp (the engine photo in the ad shows a different car though!). It is for sale here on Subito out of Bari. The price the seller wants is €13k, which is not too bad considering it is unrestored and in such a good condition looking at the pictures. The seller also has another one that needs complete restoration for sale here for €3500.