Barn / garage / driveway finds Austin 1300 MG Midget Daimler 250

On Wednesday 23 rd November 2022 we came across an Austin 1300 on Facebook Marketplace, it was advertised as a good project at £400, I told George it was worth that just for the engine, George liked the look of the car and arranged to view the following day.
we went to Essington, about a mile and a half away from us.

when we got there we were met by Wayne, who showed us his late mothers car, it had been parked in this spot on the drive for 20 odd years, no cover just open to the elements.
as you can see, she’s a bit more than an easy project, on seeing the condition of this car I explained that it was not quite as described and although the engine is worth what he’s asking (if it wasn’t seized) we wouldn’t be interested, but I said I have to ask you, if this car is on the drive and not in the garage, what is? Wayne replied an MG midget, do you want to have a look? intrigued I replied “of course”, Wayne lifted the garage door to reveal this MG Midget and in the background in decreasing light and mist we could also see the shape of the Daimler 250

wayne explained that a sad series of events lead to this situation and along with the passing of his mother, a divorce and a severe back injury this meant all three cars were untouched for over 20 years, Wayne said he wanted £600 for the MG Midget, which I thought was reasonable however the Daimler was a different story.

Wayne told us that all the suspension bushes had been replaced with new ones, all brake lines etc in fact the underneath was like new.

I looked at him and he had a serious look on his face so I said “so how do you value her”? He went on to say that good ones are fetching £20,000 so I think this is worth £10,000 ! I looked at his face again and he still looked serious! I told him that maybe the fact that the roof of the garage falling in on the car in a storm 10 years ago might put the car in a very different price bracket, I asked if he had looked at the car recently, he said due to his back injury he couldn’t get round it.

He asked what I thought it would be worth ? I proceeded to clamber over the soggy chipboard roof ( on the floor) and all the twine and weeds to look over the Daimler, it wasn’t a pretty sight, as I passed the front wheel I glanced under the wheel arch and caught a glimpse of the crows feet, these brackets are only 1.5mm thick and they were delaminating and disintegrated, I should really have stopped there but I continued to the rear, nearly breaking my neck and doing the Scooby Do run on the spot when I trod on a pack of wet plastic conduit pipe by the side of the car.

I took some photos and returned to the front of the car.

I said I don’t think the Daimler is anywhere near the value Wayne had in mind, and that he should go have a look before thinking about a value.

he asked me what I thought it was worth, I told him I would offer £1500 for all three cars, his face looked the same as earlier, it never cracked and this time I was really serious, the Daimler is very poor with not many redeeming attributes.
I actually thought Wayne had gone week at the knees, he looked at me and said £2000? I said no I’m sorry, £1500, after a little back and forth we got to £1800 with much reluctance from me, we agreed to collect them on the following Saturday.84C710A6-0C88-478F-8D98-767C1ED84B0A C44DA4D1-D234-4C02-82DA-0B877CB79E8C E5B9A776-9A61-42DC-A91D-210E58BD4897 299DAF21-7F9E-4E10-B700-345E5D7F498F