A question we get asked by many car enthusiasts is whether we have found many rare and unusual vehicles when carrying out house clearances. As you can appreciate, after decades of carrying out house clearances in London and the home countries, and sometimes further afield, of course, we have come across some quite precious vehicles of all shapes, sizes, ages and genres. From the unusual bicycle to a vintage vehicle, we can honestly say we have come across some interesting finds.

History is littered with some quite outstanding finds. These are just a few of the amazing barn finds we wish we had come across in our house clearance work in London and home counties:

If you are a Steve McQueen fan, then the movie Bullitt would mean a great deal. A film that was credited with one of the greatest car chases of all time and made the Ford Mustang not only famous, but certain models are also highly sort after. During the filming of the movie, two of the iconic Mustangs were used, one as a hero car and the other as a stunt vehicle. The latter was thought to have been lost until it turned up in a Mexican junkyard. It has now been beautifully restored.
To find one incredible classic Bugatti in a barn, you would be thought of as being a little fortunate. To find a pair? That would be a miracle or at the very least, quite incredible. But when Matthieu Lamoure and Pierre Novikoff entered a beaten up old garage in Belgium, they found three of them. The three rare finds belonged to a Dutch sculptor and Bugatti enthusiast, August Thomassen,. They had been in the barn since the end of the 1950s, untouched for the best part of 60 years.
Just imagine the person who went to investigate an old garage and found themself face-to-face with a rare 1937 Bugatti Type 57S. It was covered in dust but otherwise complete. Difficult to believe eh, but that’s exactly what happened in a sleepy part of the UK. It had belonged to a doctor who had laid the car up, which was undiscovered for 49 years. Inherited by the doctors family, it sold at auction for an amazing £3.4 million. If only!
German photographer Herbert Hesselmann’s was one day very lucky, ‘to say the least’, find 50-odd classics on a French farm. The find which occured in 1983 is probably one of the most amazing finds on record. There were rusting Alfa Romeos, dilapidated Aston Martins, dusty Bugattis, dirty Ferraris, muddy Rolls-Royces and more. Imagine finding 50 incredible vehicles. Now that is some find.

We can honestly say, we haven’t come across 50 incredible vehicles in an old barn, but we have come across a number of beautiful examples, that were very obviously once treasured by the owner. These vehicles always tell a story about the owner, and many of those owners were fascinating people, with great stories of their own.