Cars

Welcome to Tupelo, Mississippi.

Bonhams is proud to have been entrusted by Jane Spain, Stephen Mancuso and the board of the Tupelo Automobile Museum with this remarkable dispersal auction of the collection assembled by TV and Telecommunications pioneer, Frank K. Spain.

Mr. Spain, a trained Electrical Engineer, always had

a passion for automobiles and from the early 1970s until his passing in 2006, he built this extensive collection. In a period when car collecting was becoming more mainstream, Spain travelled the nation and even internationally to secure interesting collector cars. Predating the modern era of the internet, his searches were done the old-fashioned way, following up on tip-offs, writing letters, responding to small adverts in newspapers and attending events, as well as attending the early collector car auctions, including the famed Harrah Collection sales. A lead took he and his wife Jane to the UK for a ‘sightseeing trip’, during which one of his favorite cars, the Lagonda LG45 Tourer was acquired!

Those forays enabled him to build a world class collection of cars which chart the full journey

of the automobile from before the 20th Century, through to the 1970s. A cornucopia of wonderful machines, telling the story of the development of the automobile and charting the various ways in which manufacturers pioneered self-propelled vehicles, through the early days and teen era, all bases are covered. Spain was fascinated by the variety of

ways in which engineers like himself had looked for

a solution the best way of creating self-propelled vehicles. On three wheels or four, by gasoline, steam, or even hybrid as demonstrated by the remarkably prescient Owen Magnetic. Likewise, coachwork design appealed to Mr. Spain and his collection demonstrates coachbuilding from its incubation of no more than bench seats, to complicated transformable or convertible bodies and the fiberglass era. Mr. Spain was also a pioneer was in the appreciation of originality of automobiles, and there are a number of preserved, patinated or in some cases totally original examples.

Since December 2002, the collection has been publicly displayed in the immaculate 125,000 sq. ft. facility. Jane Spain comments - “For more than a decade it has been the greatest pleasure to honor

my husband Frank K. Spain and to see people come to his home town to appreciate the large automobile collection that he enjoyed building from the early 1970s. Ultimately, I feel that the greatest legacy of his passion for engineering, design and the motorcar is for them to be shared with other collectors and for that reason I have made the difficult decision to part with this collection. In selling the group, the proceeds will go to a Charitable Educational Foundation. I hope that others will enjoy acquiring and owning them as much as he did”

Bonhams is grateful to TV personality Wayne Carini, of Chasing Classic Cars, for his involvement and the auction will form the basis of an upcoming show,

as well as Joe Estess of Pappi’s Garage, our dealer partner for the auction.

Tupelo has a wide variety of hotels and excellent restaurants, we wish you an enjoyable trip to this town and spirited bidding for the Charitable Educational Foundation which will ultimately form the legacy of Frank K. Spain.