Beautiful Movie Car to go under the hammer at Coys Blenheim Palace Car Auction.

An ‘extraordinary’ car, and one of the most famous movie vehicles in the world

Captain Nemo's six-wheeled Nautilus car from Sean Connery’s adventure movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen will be sold by international auctioneers Coys at their Blenheim Palace auction on July 11th.

Designed by production designer and art director Carol Spier and one of only two made, this fully functional and complete vehicle was used throughout the film and features heavily on the promotional posters. Its twin was rigged with scaffolding for filming the actor's close-ups.

Chris Routledge, Managing Partner of Coys, said: “We have a long tradition of selling film, television and celebrity cars, and having such a cool car from such a cool film is really exciting. 

We are offering an unrepeatable opportunity to acquire one of the cars that actually appeared in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and which will undoubtedly increase in value in years to come.”

The vehicle started life as a Land Rover fire tender, adapted via a steel frame with the addition of a Rover V8 engine. The chassis is covered in an intricate ivory coloured fibreglass shell and features a wealth of elaborate embellishments in an aged gold effect on both the exterior and interior. 

Inspiration for the decoration was taken from the Hindu god Ganesha and assorted flora and fauna. The interior is trimmed with faux leather and even features the original Land Rover dials.

The wheels each measure 72cm and hidden within the arches are hydraulics to adjust the ride height. The car retains most of its original functionality and shows signs of wear and evidence of running repairs from on-set use. In spite of this wear, the car is in running condition.

For the last few years, the car has been part of a large collection of movie props and costumes at Prop Store’s UK facility. It is estimated at £18,000 to £25,000.

Stephen Lane, founder of Prop Store, said: “I bought the Nautilus from the film company after The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came out because I loved the car, loved the design and felt it was one of the most emotive vehicles I have ever seen, a true design icon. 

I have taken it to Essen, driven it at the Lord Mayor’s Show and now feel its time to let somebody else own it and enjoy it.”

A forgotten prototype of the supercharged Squire Eight is to see the light of day once more.

The car, an aluminium-bodied roadster complete with its iconic Squire sloping vee chromed radiator surround, dates from the early 90s. Advancing years and a change in priorities  has led the car's current owner to decide to offer the vehicle for sale, together with such manufacturing tooling and design data that remains, plus the legal and commercial title to the original Squire Motors Ltd. company name.

This gives this car a very strong provenance that links it back to the original 10 Adrian Squire manufactured machines made at Henley on Thames, and the three Remenham-built examples assembled from components in the late 1940s after Adrian Squire's death and the closure of the business.

Constructed using traditional English ash-framed coachbuilding techniques, but underpinned by an innovative semi-monocoque peripheral frame chassis with all-round independent suspension, this 'new' Squire prototype was intended to use the ex-Buick Rover V8 engine. 

Though shown at a number of exhibitions and classic car events, the prototype was never actually developed further into a road-going car. 

The company instead making the braver decision to invest its resources into component sourcing, tooling and manufacturing planning, so as to support a 10 to 15 unit a year production target.

In hindsight, the supercharged Squire Eight might be said to have been born out of time. The car's price tag put it somewhat above the comparable Morgan model – the Plus 8 – whilst starting to encroach upon the then still-reasonable restoration costs of an existing older classic, which came with  a correspondingly more assured resale value. 

At the other extreme, the 90s saw a tremendous surge in the production of neo-classics and replicas, most of whose sales appeal centered around naked power with an almost deliberate disregard for long-distance creature comfort. The Squire Eight's restrained elegance of line and all-round attention to detail was perhaps just too understated for its era's zeitgeist.