The Alfa Montreal bought by Gerard Gombert for junk and now steadily sinking into the undergrowth fetched $13,000 at the Osenat Auction on November 9-11.
Story and photos by Graham Gauld
Nothing much happens around this part of the South of France. The hot spots of Nice, Cannes and Monaco lie on the sunny Coast of the French Riviera but here, inland about twenty miles away, village life is about the same as it has always been. But on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week all that changed with one of the oddest auction sales I have ever attended. Here is the story.
The Alpine A110 in the foreground sold for $15,000 with the blue one behind went for $27,000.
Gerard Gombert was a one-time motor cycle racer and garage owner in Nice. He had some good customers and clients but gave it all up a number of years ago and bought a semi-derelict property right beside the main road from Draguignan and the perfume capital of France, Grasse.
What he bought was fairly dense woodland with a small house that bordered that road. Then compulsion took over and he began to collect things, mainly cars and motorcycles but eventually caravans, trucks and bric-a-brac that nobody else would buy. His property became a junkyard.