A RARE 90-year-old former Southampton taxi, which cost £895 new but which had not been seen in public for nearly 50 years, sold for £55,200 at an auction in Hampshire.
The 1923 Vauxhall OD 23-60 HP Kington Tourer was bought for nearly double the sum it had been expected to fetch.
It was a Southampton taxi in the late 1930s after it was bought by Mr Charles Ayscough from Basingstoke.
But it has not been seen in public since it appeared at a garden fete in 1967.
Before the Bonhams auction at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu on Saturday the former Southampton taxi had been expected to sell for between £25,000 and £30,000.
It was not the only car with a Hampshire link in the Beaulieu auction.
A 1950 Bentley MKV1 four and a quarter litre Barchetta, registration number HUK 21, once owned by the late Eastleigh-born former Hollywood stunt driver Sidney “Skid” Martin, sold for £40,250.
The auction took place as tens of thousands of people trawled through 2,000 stands of motoring bargains, classic cars and restoration projects at the annual International Autojumble.
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