Watch out! Time is money for these classic cars with not much on the clock

Last month the largest Rolex store in the Southern Hemisphere opened in Sydney. Since then, the watch shop has basically run out of stock and every day there is a long queue of clock heads outside the door who just want to put some money on the table in the hope they might get a piece of Swiss metal in a year or so. Rolex are the Ferrari of the watch caper.

Hans Wilsdorf started off his career as a watch winder. Early on he saw the future. At the time, around 1903, pocket watches were the go. Wilo not only got men persons wearing them and made them work underwater but he realised that the best form of promotion was anything related to cars and motor racing.

During half-time between the first big one and the second big one Wilo sponsored Mercedes Gelitze to be the first English woman to swim the channel. Then Wilo got Mal Campbell to wear one of his watches while Mal drove his 1715KW, 36.7 litre supercharged Rolls Royce V12 Blue Bird at 445.5km/h along the sand at Daytona Beach.

OK, fast forward to 1972 when Paul Newman took up motor racing. Wife and fellow thespian Joanne Woodward gave the Newster a Rolex Daytona which probably cost her all of $200. In 2017 a willing punter paid $23m for Paul's 1968 Daytona and three years later paid $7.2m for his 1980 Big Red Daytona. Today new Daytona prices start at $20k but you can't get one anyway so don't worry about saving up.

In the classic car caper we're seeing the same thing. Hagerty just released its "10 Classic Car Sale Prices That Exceeded All Expectations in 2020". How about a 1972 Bentley Corniche ($100K on the best day of its life) selling for $285K? A 1971 Lamborghini Miura P400 SV Speciale? Great car, $3m any day of the week. In September Goodings get nearly $6m for a metallic gold one.

Closer to home is the Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth Group A which broke the Bathurst lap record in 1990 with Tony Longhurst at the wheel. Online auction house Collecting Cars says this is "the last of five Sierra RS500s campaigned by Tony Longhurst Racing, the only car to have been built entirely in Australia, by Frank Gardner and Jim Stone." Rebuilt without regard to cost, bring it back to Australia from the UK for around $250K.