If you’d love to arrive at your next big occasion like a Roaring 20s aristocrat then you should start saving for this September, when a very special Sunbeam car will be sold. 

The goings on at Downton Abbey have been fascinating viewers since 2010. This September a Grand Finale movie release signals the end of the saga and it’s being marked with a major prop and costume auction at Bonhams. 

No doubt this gown, worn by Michelle Dockery (as Lady Mary) for her wedding to Matthew Crawley will attract fashion-conscious buyers. Image courtesy of Bonhams. 

 

Alongside some beautiful wedding gowns, Jim Carter’s glowering black butler’s suit, and the bells that sent him stalking off to serve his masters, is a beautiful, historic motor. 

The 1925 Sunbeam 20/60hp will be familiar to anyone who has watched Downton over the years. It was driven on-screen - with Granthams inside - from series two to series five and in all the big-screen versions of the show. 

It’s a car made for the cream of early-20th century society by one of the legends of British motoring. 

The Sunbeam Motor Car Company produced some of the finest cars of its age from suburban Wolverhampton. Rolls-Royce were concerned enough by the company’s output that they kept a special eye on their latest models. 

A Sunbeam Nautilus, one of the company's standout racing speedsters. 

 

The company loved racing; Sir Malcolm Campbell drove a Sunbeam named Blue Bird to the landspeed record. 

Sadly, the company didn’t survive the Depression, though its name lived on in the Talbot Sunbeam models that were produced until the late 1970s. 

This stately, chauffeur driven machine wouldn’t have broken any speed records. 

Bonhams write in their catalogue for the September 16 sale: “Introduced at the 1923 Olympia Motor Show and priced at £950 for the tourer model, the first 20hp Sunbeam of the post-war era enjoyed a production life in its initial form of only two years, being superseded by a new Twenty in 1926.”

Bells from the Abbey are bound to be popular. Image courtesy of Bonhams. 

 

This was a seriously luxurious product, being made before cars plopped off robot-manned production lines. Just 1,560 were produced. Bonhams think only 45 survive in running order. 

You can drive this example, and you’ll get the registration papers to allow you to use it on British roads. 

It was first owned by a Lancashire mill owner - a nice detail of social history for Downton fans - who modified its wheels to allow it to skate over Blackpool’s tramlines safely. 

It’s a seven-seater and largely just as it was when it came out of that Wolverhampton factory. 

You’d like to know the price? 

The estimate is £25,000 to £35,000. As a guide, in 2012 a similar car that probably performed in the 60s TV show Doctor Finlay’s Casebook was auctioned for £33,350. 

The Downton sale is preceded by an exhibition in London from August 18. 

 

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