Want a 4-litre Pontiac you can sleep in? Now's your chance...
Oneupmanship in the Goodwood Revival motorhome car park surely goes by the name of Pontiac Six 4.0-litre with Coachwork by Russell’s of Bexhill. You can look for it in the camping area if you want but, this year at least, you won’t find it there. This year it’s in the Bonhams Revival auction.
The pictures tell the best story of this amazing two-owner, beautifully coachbuilt vehicle. It’s done just 9205 miles from new and with its original curtains, linoleum and fixtures and fittings – even ancient tins of jam in the cupboards! – it presents a perfect time-warp vision.
Bonhams says this pioneer motorhome is also readily usable. It arrived in the UK in 1935 as a drivable chassis before being handed over by its owner, Captain Dunn of Bexhill-on-Sea, to a local coachbuilder, Russell’s, for a bespoke conversion job. The Pontiac took Captain Dunn on holidays around southern England before war arrived and the Pontiac was painted khaki in anticipation of being pressed into service as an ambulance.
That never happened – one reason it has remained so remarkably original and complete – and it was put into storage instead. It’s said that every few months between 1940 and her death in 1991, Captain Dunn’s widow would tip some oil into the cylinder bores and turn the engine over.
The practice paid off, for despite being off the road for 50 years, when Bonhams replaced the old oil and petrol and fitted a new battery, the six-cylinder engine started “within one turn of the starter and has run sweetly ever since”.
American power, English craftsmanship, total originality, useable condition and completely unique – if this isn’t doing what it was designed to do at Revival next year we will want to know why. Guide price: £30-40,000.
Bonhams
