Huge collection of 230 classic cars discovered: Had to see it in person

It belonged to a Mr. Palmen who loved Italian cars like Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati and Ferrari.

BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Those of you who have been following international car news might have come across this topic. A huge unknown classic car collection of 230 cars was discovered in the Netherlands. The collection belonged to a Mr. Palmen. Hence it has become to be known as the Palmen Barnfind Collection.

This is an image of Mr. Palmen taken in the early sixties.

It is very rare for such a huge collection to turn up, so obviously we had to go and see it!

The collection was bought lock stock and barrel by Nico Aaldering. A well-known Classic Car dealer. I have written about him and his son before.

From the official website

Mr. Palmen started collecting cars approximately 40 years ago with a yellow Lancia B20 being the first car. Over the years his collection grew substantially. The variety is more than eclectic. He had a refined taste and extensive knowledge of rare and special cars as he was professionally dealing in similar cars from the mid 60’s before he started collecting.

The collection was stored in a church and two dry but dusty warehouses. Mr. Palmen was starting the cars on a regular basis to keep the engines from being seized. Most of the collection is in an unrestored and original condition. He kept the cars how they were when entering his warehouses and he almost did not sell anything after it was added to his collection. He rarely showed the collection to anyone, so very few people knew of its existence. The maintenance was mostly done by himself. You can definitely call it one of the best kept secret car collections of Europe.

Mr. Palmen loved Italian cars like Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati and Ferrari. Plus, French Facel Vega’s and German BMW’s, Mercedes, and NSU’s. The British are well represented with Jaguars, Aston Martins, and Rolls-Royces, while American classics include Chevrolets, Cadillacs, and Fords. The collection also features Tatra, Monica, Moretti, Matra, Alvis, Imperia, and Villard.

In total, there are more than 230 cars brought together in the main warehouse.

Due to the age of Mr. Palmen and various circumstances, the collection will now be sold.

We hope the new owners will cherish them as much as he did.

It is unlikely that anyone will ever see a collection of this caliber and condition again in their lifetime.

The auction will start this coming week.

The auction is handled by the Classiccar-auctions. They are well known for being the one that sort of started online car auctions. But they are not in the same league as say a Bonhams, not by a long shot.

This weekend they had three viewing days and we went on Saturday morning. Nico might know quite a lot about classic cars, but he knows even more about making money. Tickets were Euro 55 per person! (INR 5000), or Euro 80 for two people and a catalogue. That is serious money for viewing days. Usually, it is maybe Euro 10/20.

Anyway, for me Dordrecht is a 20 minutes drive and it was a gorgeous Saturday, so it was a nice outing with spanner mate Peter.

I won’t go into the details of each and every car. You can read all about each car on the auction site mentioned above. Just some impressions of what was on display.

The collection had several Alfa Romeo Spiders. This here was nice enough 1985 Serie 3, similar to mine, estimated to fetch 8-15K euro. As you will notice the engine is all dirty with soot. There had been a fire in one of Mr. Palmen’s barns years ago and some of the cars had quite a bit of soot outside and inside.

Another Alfa Romeo, a Bertone, or officially, a Giulia GTC 1965. Estimate 68-95K.

Some more images

One of the really rare cars in this collection, a Lancia Aurelia B24 Spider America 1955. Estimate 675-875K Euro!

Another car I had not seen before, a Saab Sonnet 97, 1963. Estimate 5-9K Euro.

Part of the collection was outside, a few in a big tent, where you could also get coffee/tea. But the majority of the cars were still inside a barn. A very very full barn I might add!

Peter and I have been on the lookout for an affordable Rolls-Royce for many years. Mr Palmen had two, but neither was of interest to us. This here is a RR 20/25 from 1934.

Notice the RR has original Dutch plates. A lot of these cars have already Dutch registration.

The engine room of a Citroen SM, with its impressive Maserati engine and lots of complex hydraulic plumbing.

More cars and a lot of people doing the “viewing”.

Here is another thing of beauty, a Lamborghini engine, with 6 carburettors! Can you imagine, the one carburettor on my Mercedes has given me no end of troubles already!

No matter what, a (classic) Jaguar interior is always a thing of beauty!

The catalogue was of a very high quality I must admit. A real book with the complete collection laid out:

But as always with anything from Nico, some of it is incorrect and or exaggerated. None of the Spiders up to the 916 had independent rear suspension as is claimed here.

We spend about one hour pouring over all these cars. As I mentioned it was quite busy and these cars were packed together tightly, so you had to move carefully. Not so much for damaging the cars, but for getting your clothes very very dirty!

Of course, I have seen many “barn find cars” over the years at various exhibitions. It is rare to have this many on display. As barnfinds go, it is probably one of the larger discoveries in the classic car world. 230 classic cars is a big collection any day. Our impression was that Mr. Palmen was more interested in owning cars than maintaining, working on them or driving them. Each to its own, whatever floats your boat of course.

Although it is claimed that Mr. Palmen did start most of his cars regularly and maintained his cars himself, we could see very little evidence of any TLC. Just about all these cars will require a very substantial amount of work to get them in decent condition.

Many classic car enthusiasts will be following the online auctions during the next couple of days. In general, we felt the estimated prices were way too high for the condition the cars were in. Something Aaldering is well known for.

There is another tricky thing with this collection. As neither Peter nor I had the intention of bidding for anything we had not read the general conditions of the auction. But a friend of mine and a big-time classic car collector and restorer had.

Apparently, there is a lien on each car. And when you buy it, that lien remains and you are also required to properly insure the car. So you could end up shelling out big bucks for a restoration object, that will sit in your garage for years to come and it will require continuous insurance and there is still somebody out there, that has a claim to it!! Very unusual. The only reason we could think of is that Nico Aaldering bought the complete collection with borrowed money.

Peter and I had a nice morning, we drove into Dordrecht center and had a very nice lunch sitting on the riverfront. All in all, an interesting and enjoyable day.

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