You might spend $108,000 on a luxury sports car — but what about an old Commodore?
That's how much an extremely rare 1979, Holden VH SL/E Commodore went for at Lloyd's auctions on Saturday.
"It shouldn't exist but it does, and I'm happy it does, and it broke the record on Saturday," national classic car manager for Lloyds Auctions Frank Cheney said.
The VH model was produced in Australia from 1981 to 1984. This prototype Commodore has a VB chassis, as that was what Holden had at the time.
The car was discovered in the Wimmera.
"It was in country Victoria under a dusty sheet, the story goes, and then it went on to the open market on Saturday for the first time and broke an auction record, and rightfully so," Mr Cheney said.
"It was all made by Holden employees, it [had] all handcrafted panels, there was still putty in the boot from where they handcrafted the shape of the car.
The VH SL/E Commodore was originally one of three prototypes made, but this is the only one that survived.
Not much is known about this car's history, but Mr Cheney said it was found in pristine condition.
"It has been seen by public eyes for the first time in an open market on Saturday. It's obviously [been] hidden away for many, many years. A lot of people didn't know it existed.
"The story goes that originally after [General Motors-Holden] were done with it, it went to a South Australian TAFE and somehow ended up with one of the teachers at the TAFE.
"They had it for many years and it was hidden away and obviously just under a tarp in country Victoria.
"About 12 months ago the previous custodian discovered the car and purchased the car and finally had the guts to send it to auction."
Another Holden also sold for a record price on Saturday — a 1968 Holden HK Monaro, which fetched a price of $330,000.
Driving up the price of classic cars
Mr Cheney said the price of classic cars was expected to rise dramatically over the next decade.
"We just don't see them like we used to five or six years ago when the classic cars really went boom in Australia," he said.
"We used to see more of these sorts of things but we haven't seen them for a long time."
Mr Cheney said buying or holding on to a car was a popular form of investment.
"And since the pandemic, especially, the rise of classic cars has been incredible … people [are] looking for things that they can enjoy and there are not many great investments that you can."
