Little Briton to make great price of £20k at a Wolverhampton auction

The car, which cost only 175 guineas, or £183.75p in modern money, when it was delivered new in 1909, was one of the first cars built by the trail-blazing Briton Motor Company at its Stewart Street Works in Wolverhampton.

Now, the vehicle is to be put up for sale tomorrow. The Bonhams auction will take place at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire, from 11am.

The vehicle is one of the oldest of the five remaining twin-cylinder Britons. Its eye-catching number plate, which is possibly its original number plate, is IT 442.

It could particularly appeal to an IT expert passionate about football and veteran cars.

According to the auctioneers, the car was delivered new to Ireland where it was actively rallied by one T R Hinds throughout the 1950s.

In the 1960s the car was sold to Charles Weight Junior, son of the Tractor Spares founder, and used in promotional films.

By the early 1970s, the Briton had passed to Andrew Wills; it was displayed in his Wessex Machinery Museum at Barton Stacey, Winchester, and occasionally trailered to shows.

When the museum's contents were auctioned in May 1976, the Briton was among the handful of cars not included – it would remain in barn storage until its acquisition by the current seller in 2015. Ruth Fletcher of Bonhams said: "This is Beaulieu Autojumble's 50th year, and we're delighted to be offering for sale some incredible, historic motor cars at the Bonhams auction.

"The annual auction regularly features some rare finds, and at more than a century old and in incredibly original condition, this Little Briton is exactly that. The car has been re-commissioned, but carefully preserved to keep it's originality and the patina of age.

"It's a remarkably original find and a great piece of Wolverhampton's automotive history."

The Briton Motor Company, which built cars in Wolverhampton in the early 1900s, started off in Stewart Street, in the city, before switching to more spacious premises at Lower Walsall Street in 1913, after the company bought a six-acre site there.

In 1909 when the Little Briton car was built in Wolverhampton, Louis Bleriot also made the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft. He won a prize of £1,000 from the Dail Mail. He went on to start an aircraft company.