A powder blue 1960 Ford Anglia is sitting on Bring a Trailer right now, and if your first thought is Harry Potter, you’re exactly the buyer this car is looking for.
The left-hand-drive export model is a near-twin of the flying car Ron Weasley used to rescue Harry from the Dursleys in The Chamber of Secrets. It doesn’t fly, but it does have a four-speed manual and a freshly overhauled suspension, which is more than most movie replicas can claim.
This particular Anglia already has screen credits of its own. It appeared in a Harry Potter-themed episode of The Masked Singer, which tells you everything about where its value proposition lives.
Under the hood sits 997cc of British four-cylinder motivation, rated at 41 horsepower when new. A new carburetor, generator, and starter have been fitted. A few oil leaks and cosmetic blemishes are disclosed, but nothing that would stop you from driving it.
The Anglia’s history is more interesting than most people realize. The original version debuted in September 1939, just weeks after Britain entered World War II, designed as cheap transportation for hard times. Two Anglias later played a role in one of Scotland’s most celebrated capers, when a group of students used them to steal the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in 1950.
The sixth generation, which this car represents, arrived in the late 1950s with styling cues borrowed from its American cousins. That reverse-slanted rear window came straight from the Mercury and Lincoln playbook. Ford actually wind-tunnel tested the body to improve highway fuel economy, and the little car went on to set endurance records and become one of the best-selling vehicles in UK history.
Police departments ran them. Families depended on them. None of that mattered in North America, where the Anglia was an obscurity until J.K. Rowling put one in the sky.
That single fictional appearance did more for the model’s name recognition than decades of actual production ever managed.
The auction closes September 1. Bidding will tell us whether nostalgia for a fictional flying car translates into real money for a 66-year-old econobox that makes 41 horsepower and leaks a little oil. In the world of collector cars, stranger things have commanded serious prices, and a clean Anglia in any color is hard to find on this continent.
What makes this one tricky to value is the gap between what it is and what it represents. As a car, it’s a charming but modest British compact with simple mechanicals and modest performance. As a cultural object, it’s one of the most recognizable vehicles in modern cinema, right up there with the DeLorean and the Batmobile.
The question is whether someone bids on the metal or the memory. With Harry Potter fandom showing no signs of fading and original Anglias getting scarcer every year, whoever wins this auction might end up holding something that appreciates on both fronts.
Or they might just have a quirky little Ford that’s a blast to drive slowly through a neighborhood while children point and shout about Hogwarts. Either way, the listing is live and the clock is ticking.
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