Sir Jimmy’s cars fix it for charity by beating estimates

And Sir Jimmy’s three-wheeled BMW bubble car also smashed through its £5,000 estimate, after being bought for £22,000 by a care home owner who said she decided to buy the car after the late DJ and TV personality did a good turn for her residents.

Angela Swift said Sir Jimmy opened one of her homes in Yarm, near Stockton-on-Tees, and would not take a fee despite other celebrities asking for between £15,000 and £20,000 to turn up.

She said she wanted to replay the generosity and give something back to his charitable trust.

Ms Swift bought the car – a 1965 BMW Isetta 300 Plus –to be the centrepiece of her firm Silk Health Care’s new care home in Barnsley.

She said: “It’s a way of coming and giving something back to his charity. And we get a bubble car with it too.

“He was just a caring person. He’s special. There’s no one like him.”

Asked if her residents would appreciate the expensive new arrival, she said: “They will absolutely love it. They remember the bubble car too.”

“I know that when Sir Jimmy sees it in the home he’ll be watching and I think he’ll know it’s the right place for it to be.”

Unlike Sir Jimmy’s Rolls-Royce, which was bought by an internet buyer, the bubble car was the subject of nail-biting bidding in the hall during the auction at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

The total raised from auctioning 549 lots of Sir Jimmy’s memorabilia was expected to comfortably exceed the estimate of £250,000.