A Dundee car enthusiast is planning to sell his ”brand-new”, unregistered motor.
There is nothing unusual in that, it would seem except the car in question is more than 30 years old, has never been driven on a public road and has never been registered with the DVLA.
The 1981 Ford Cortina Mark V is to be put up for auction by Frank Schiach after he decided it was time to sell his prized possession.
Frank (47), who is chief engineer with National Express in Dundee, bought the unused car from a dealership in England in 2005 after the previous owner died. Since then it has been kept under lock and key and has only been rolled out for classic car shows, being transported to and from events by trailer.
Frank, a member of the Tayside Classic Car Club, says he believes the Cortina to be unique it even ”flummoxed” the DVLA but says after seven years it’s time for the car to be moved on.
”I don’t think there will be another one in this condition,” he said. ”There’s only delivery mileage on the clock and it’s brand new. I got it after I was told about it by someone in the car club. They said a multi-millionaire enthusiast had kept it in his collection since buying it new.
”Apparently he used to buy the last model made of different kinds of cars and he bought this one when Ford stopped making Cortinas and started the Sierra. The man was a car dealer from down south TC Harrison was his name and he kept it in his collection until he died.
”I bought it seven years ago and although I wanted to drive it I’ve resisted it. Since then I’ve taken it round car shows but you can only do so much of that. I’ve decided to auction it off now, although I don’t know how I’m going to go about that yet.
”It’s a Mark V and has never been registered. It came out the same year as the Sierra was launched and it doesn’t even have a number plate. Anybody who buys it can choose their own number if they want to register it.
”I went to the DVLA and asked what number it would get and they didn’t know. It completely flummoxed them.
”Eventually somebody got the answer and said that there was no reason why it couldn’t be given the latest number available, although they would need proof that it exists and has never been registered before.
”But they actually said it could be given a number that would have been generated on the computer from 1981, they would just stick the next one on it from that year.”
He added: ”I’ve no idea what it’s worth now but it would have been about £5,500 back then.”