Rare 1930 MGC makes £15,297

Here's another interesting bike that Bonhams flogged on 6th February at its Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais sale. It's rare, it's quirky, it's oh-so-very-French, and it puts us in mind of something they might have used in the cult 1960s psychedelic sci-fi movie, Barbarella.

It's a 1930 MGC Grand Sport Type N3, built by Marcel Guiguet, a man who clearly had a passion for aluminium and a taste for the unorthodox. That perhaps explains why he had the fuel tank, the oil tank and the top frame tube cast in the most abundant metal on earth. He also cast some more ally for the lower frame section, and in between this lightweight mechanical sandwich he installed a 350cc JAP OHV single and a 3-speed (hand change) Burman gearbox.

Being aluminium, and being cutting edge technology, the structure was riddled with problems leading to stress cracks, cavities and porosity, and most of the production motorcycles soon fell into disrepair, and were cannibalised, and scrapped and probably recycled into Renaults.

But the audacious machine has more than a little of that famous je ne sais quoi, and the Guggenheim Museum saw fit to display it at its 1998 'Art of the Motorcycle' exhibition.

The MGC was first registered in 1930. Documentation traces it to the French Département of Isère where the factory was located, and then relocates it on 9th January 1941 in the Département of Aveyron".

If you believe the rumour, the bike (images by Bonhams) was won in a poker game from either Marcel Guiguet himself, or Emmanuel Mesly, an MGC factory engineer. Sounds like one of those stories that you naturally want to believe, so we believe it.

Unridden since 1950, this almost steampunkish barn find was sold "as found" and is said to be ripe for restoration. But why anyone would want to do that to this amazing time capsule is beyond us.

— Girl Happy