25 Aug James Hull car collection

£100 MILLION TO SPARE?

A car-obsessed dentist who has amassed Britain’s biggest private car collection is selling the whole lot for £100 million. James Hull, 53, who founded the James Hull Associates chain of dentists, owns more than 450 rare and classic cars. With cars represented from every decade since the 1930s, the collection includes multi-million pound Jaguars, Winston Churchill’s Austin and a Bentley once owned by Elton John. With no room to park them all near his home in Kensington, West London, he garages them in vast warehouses in Herefordshire, but has now decided to sell up because of health reasons. None of the cars are cheap, and a buyer with particularly deep pockets is needed because Dr Hull says he is determined to sell the collection as a whole. He is hoping a buyer will come in with a £100 million-plus offer, making it the highest value car sale in Britain.

Dr Hull, who made his fortune pioneering cosmetic dentistry in the UK, has battled cancer three times in the past four years, earning him the nickname Lazarus to friends. He travelled around the world to track down some of the rarer models in his collection, shipping them back to Britain and then having them stripped down before rebuilding them. If he finds a suitable buyer, Dr Hull will need a new hobby, but he’s not yet sure what it will be. He said “I’m a collector, so who knows what will turn up next. My wife hopes it will be something smaller like stamps”