The NEC Classic Motor Show Sale 2019 - 9th & 10th November 2019

www.silverstoneauctions.com 31 + buyer’s premium of 15% including VAT @ 20% Cars Saturday 9th November 2019 1963 Chevrolet Corvette (C2) Stingray Convertible LOT 205 This is an attractive and well-maintained example of America’s Sports Car from a great year, and with only 69,000 miles and in this lovely condition, is very sensibly guided, however, we can’t help feeling that a lot of people will be interested in it simply because it was owned and regularly driven by the most successful British chart act of all time. Over a career spanning 60 years, Sir Cliff Richard OBE has amassed many Gold and Platinum discs and awards, including two Ivor Novello Awards and three Brits. Over 130 of his singles, albums and EPs have reached the UK Top 20, more than any other artist. He has had 67 UK top-ten singles, the second-highest total for any artist behind Elvis. He also holds the record (with Elvis) as the only act to make the UK singles charts in all of its first six decades (the 1950s–2000s), has achieved 14 UK number- one singles and is the only singer to have had a number-one single in the UK in five consecutive decades. He remains a popular performer, another of those curiously British ‘institutions’, and in 1995 he was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen for his charity work. David Steen (much-respected freelance photographer of film stars, actors, criminals, politicians and Prime Ministers in the 1960’s and whose evocative images of Cliff and the Corvette appeared in the Press at the time) recalls: “During his series of one-nighters, Cliff drove himself from town to town, gig to gig, in his left-hand-drive Corvette Sting Ray. He was a good driver and loved cars. At that time he also had a Cadillac Fleetwood limousine. I spent three days on the road with him.” The fact that most ardent Cliff Richard fans will almost certainly be sporting a fine crop of silver hair is not really relevant as, for many of them, the Corvette and Cliff will be the key to opening a box full of wonderful memories. Take your mind back to the Spring of 1963. You are 17, on a spring break from college and half a dozen of you are squeezed into an old VW Microbus rattling down the A303 on the way to Dawlish or Woolacombe or Saunton Sands to watch the surfing, enjoy bonfires on the beach, fall in love and generally relish the freedom of being a hundred miles away from your parents. The transistor radio, wedged in a corner of the dashboard, is only ever switched off for a battery change and, as the charts at the time were topped by Cliff or the Shadows or Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, then that music inevitably became the soundtrack for those magical few weeks of self-discovery. A trip to the local cinema to see Cliff’s latest film Summer Holiday about a gang of teenage friends and a big red bus and featuring a number of hit songs including Summer Holiday, The Next Time and Bachelor Boy only serves to enhance that adolescent, we’re going to live forever, sense of teenage identity. Let’s move forward to Spring 2020 and you are considering making that trip again, just for the sake of it, a bit of nostalgia, play some Cliff and the Shadows on the MP4 and maybe take in the digitally-remastered Summer Holiday shown at the Regal in a small Dorset town as part of their Sixties Night programme. What a great idea. Now, imagine that you could make that trip behind the wheel of Cliff’s own Corvette, a car in which he probably composed some of his greatest hits and almost certainly sang them to himself on the way to a gig. Wouldn’t that be special, an experience you simply can’t buy. Well, actually, you can.