A few days ago, Tom Cotter - the so-called "Barn Find Hunter" - visited a place I've never been but would love to go, the Owls Head Museum in Maine. In this segment, he runs through how the Museum acquires cars from various collections and estates after owners pass on, thus allowing the Museum to either exhibit the car or to sell it and use the proceeds to address operational expenses.
In this episode, he looks at a genuine Austin Healey 100 LeMans, an exceedingly rare car built with factory performance enhancements. A scarce few of them were assembled on the factory production lines with these upgrades, while the bulk of them were conceived via disparate parts installations at the dealership level. The curator of the Museum explains how the donated Healey is one of the small batch of examples built at the factory with the LeMans upgrades, a fact he was able to confirm via a data plate that had been previously removed and left under the front passenger seat.
As he goes on to say, that's potentially a $50,000 discovery. He's not wrong: in "Good" condition, Hagerty considers it a $140,000 car. As you can imagine, finding this car without the coveted tag could represent a whack of $25,000 - $50,000. That's why we push so hard for our clients to document everything, as when it comes time to sell, a thoroughly-documented vehicle can see upwards of a 10- to 20 percent increase in its sale price.
At The Common Gear, we'll ensure your vital records are captured digitally and preserved for the future, whether it's simply to share the history of your car among friends or to drive home a stronger sale price at auction.