OCTOBER 14, 2005

Williams to sell old cars

The Bonhams auction house is to sell a number of Williams cars at a sale in December at the team's base in Grove. The team is selling 20 famous cars from its impressive private collection. The team says that its inventory has grown relentlessly, with every season of competition adding a number of chassis and that plans for consolidation have been in the pipeline for a while. The major lots on offer will be the Williams Honda FW10B in which Nigel Mansell won his inaugural Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in 1985, Mansell's FW14B in which he won six Grands Prix en route to his World Championship title in 1992, Damon Hill's FW18 from his World Championship season in 1996 as well as cars with Grand Prix winning history in the hands of drivers such as Riccardo Patrese, Alain Prost, Jacques Villeneuve, Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher.

In addition to the racing cars, the team is selling off the first Renault Clio Williams (Chassis number 0001) and around one hundred other items such as the damaged wishbone from Damon Hill's clash with Michael Schumacher in the 1994 Australian Grand Prix and the race suit that Jacques Villeneuve was wearing when he won the 1997 World Championship in Jerez, after surviving an assault from Schumacher.