The Ford Escort that Prince Charles of England gave to Lady Diana as an engagement gift ends up at auction.
The car, a 1980 Ghia, was donated in May 1981, a few months before the first real “Royal wedding” as we know them today, and Diana drove it until 1982. In the period in which she held it, the princess he often used it both for personal matters and to visit Carlo, but shortly after William’s birth he separated from it.
Traces of the Ford Escort are lost until 1995, when it was bought for £ 6,000 by an antique dealer who gave it to his daughter. A few years later it was sold to Tina Kirkpatrick, who – as the Daily Mail – he did not tell anyone the real origin of the car, even if a very particular distinctive sign could have betrayed it: a silver frog that Lady D received from her sister, Lady Sarah Spencer, and which she attached to the hood, where she still remains today to watch how mascot.
Kirkpatrick has taken care of the Escort religiously in twenty years before deciding to part with it: the 1.6 engine is still fully functional, and despite the over 130,000 km the car has everything it takes to circulate, with such an interior. such as those of 1980 and the same plate, WEV 297W.
The Ford will then be auctioned with a base price of £ 40,000 by the Essex auction house Reeman Dansie on June 29th. Just a few days before what would have been the 60th birthday of the princess, she died on 31 August 1997 in a car accident in the Alma tunnel in Paris.
