UFO Info Week-End

It has a removable racing hard top and a tuned 6-litre V-12 engine

It has a removable racing hard top and a tuned, 6-litre V-12 engine which produces close to 600 horsepower, giving the car a top speed of over 200mph Estimate: around €1.2m (£830,000).. The car was recently taken back to Le Mans and filmed lapping the circuit. It is offered ready-to-race for €1.2m-€1.4m (£830,000-£970,000).Sotheby’s, Maranello, Italy, 23 May Car: Maserati MCC12. A gullwing door from the XJR6 which came second at Spa in the 1985 season is expected to fetch £400-£600.Bonhams, Paris, 13 February Car: Matra MS670B. Celebrated French former racing driver Jean-Pierre Beltoise is selling a collection of 14 cars in the auction, the highlight of which is the Matra MS670B which won the 1973 Le Mans 24-hour race. For £60,000-£65,000, you could hit the dirt in the 1972 works Ford Escort in which Hannu Mikkola won that year’s Scottish Rally and came first in the Touring Car category of the Monte Carlo. It is offered for sale in fully restored, race-ready condition.Memorabilia: Jaguar historian Leslie Thurston is selling his collection of TWR/ Jaguar racing memorabilia, including the steering wheel from the 1988 Le Mans-winning XJR 9 (estimate £1,800-£2,400) and the gear lever from the 1991 World Sports Car Championship-winning XJR14 (estimate £500-£600).

020-7293 5000.Historic motorsport contacts: Vintage Sports Car Club (01608 644777; ), Motor Sports Association (MSA) (01753 765000; ), Classic Rally Association (CRA) (01633 263366; .uk), Top Hat Racing (01926 885835)FOUR TO VIEWCheffins, NEC Birmingham, 15 January Car: Historic rallying is emerging as one of the fastest-growing areas of classic motorsport. H and H, International Historic Motorsport Show, Stoneleigh Park, Warks 01925 73063023 May Sotheby’s, Ferrari Logistics, Maranello, Italy. Cheffins, Autosport International racing car show, NEC, Birmingham.01799 51313115 Jan. Coys, Interclassics and Top Mobiel show, Maastricht, Holland.020-7584 74448 Feb Barons, Sandown Park, Esher, Surrey 02380 84008112 Feb Christie’s, Retromobile, Paris 020-7389 213813 Feb Bonhams, Winter Circus, Paris 020-7313 317625-27 Feb. Purchase only from a reliable source and, whenever possible, obtain a certificate of authenticity. If you are happy to own a replica piece, there are many items on offer, but be sure not to pay over the odds.

A genuine rear wing end-plate from one of Michael Schumacher’s cars is probably worth around £500. A replica should cost no more than £100.”Demand for memorabilia from the earlier days of motor racing remains relatively strong, however. “We recently sold a signed 1930 Bentley team photograph for £16,500 and Mike Hawthorn’s steering wheel from the Ferrari 246 in which he won the Morocco GP to become 1958 World Champion realised £21,500 at one of our Ferrari sales in Gstaad,” adds Wilson.Sale dates and venues15 Jan. However, according to Bonhams automobilia specialist Toby Wilson, this is a collecting area where the phrase caveat emptor has become highly applicable.

“The market for F1 and motorsport memorabilia really took off after the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994,” he says. “Prices boomed, but typically there were people out to make a quick buck by selling fakes, particularly of race helmets, and this has put a lot of potential buyers off. Right now the supply of genuine items is exceeding demand, so there are some excellent opportunities for buyers to pick up affordable, good-quality memorabilia.”It really is a case of ‘buyer beware’ – anything dating from the past 15 years has to have irrefutable provenance to be really valuable. The more highly tuned and exotic the car, the greater the expense of maintenance – and it may already have been raced to exhaustion.But if buying and racing a classic sounds like too much of a commitment, you could always bid for some of the numerous lots of motorsport memorabilia which will be offered during the coming months. A VSCC sprint or hillclimb demands relatively little in the way of additional safety features, but if you plan to race in more high-level events with strict scrutineering regulations, the car will have to pass muster or you won’t be allowed to compete.