Having lived with this Auction for around three months in my role as the Club Captain for the Rover Owners Club (NSW & ACT) here's some of what I know, and some of what I learned.
The Doctor kept notes; lots and lots of notes. There were rumours that there were note books on each car but none has surfaced at this time; therefore the Auctioneers who compiled the auction did not have specifics to work with and seem to have failed to talk to Rover Club experts in the models available (and both ROC and RCCA have model experts who really do know their stuff!). That said I know who bid and won a huge lot of manuals and even owners hand books; he's still sorting them but has found numerous notes from the doc on particular cars and has been able to already mate two handbooks with Lot number particulars - we'll publish through a local FB site - see friends of the FLynn ROver Collection - a closed group - if you want more info.
It is hoped that perhaps in further auctions of the Dr's belongings the rumoured note books may surface.
So yes; there were countless errors and even the final catalogue was still inaccurate in parts.
Secondly; as far as talking to the guys who worked on these cars (one mechanic had been with the Dr for three to four years) the Doc was into collecting first and still drove a lot of different cars. His priority seemed to be shiny carbies, good mechanicals, then the bodies and finally the interiors. His obsession was saving as many as possible rather than restoring them all though some cars were indeed in the process of nice restos!
His cars were all sourced from within Australia as far as research can show at this time. The P6B I won is an export model that was picked up in the UK and driven on holiday before shipping to Australia. Once I get it back to Sydney (planned for this weekend), I'll be able to get into the serious side of the research...
His parts were sourced from all over; but particularly from the UK, from where he landed a container or so each year!
Many of the parts were BER; beyond economical repair. Around 25-30% were brand new and possibly as much was second hand but usable/serviceable or could be revamped. Why he had so many second hand head gaskets I'll never know.
There were 143 cars in the auction with a further 62 scrapped before hand (and arguably parted out but this wasn't made clear). Of these a number were Cadillacs, Buicks and one old Morris hulk (it's down as an Austin!). Similarly, of the cars scrapped, many were Rovers but possibly not all but if scrapped they were WAY beyond restoration or worth keeping.
Prices in the auction varied from around $10,000 AUD to $5-00 AUD for the Rover side of things. Similarly the parts were also cheap - a particularly nice fully brand new P6B engine (high comp) motor went for $400AUD.
There is an epilogue. Over the weekend of Dec 3-4 those parts remaining are open to all Rover Club Members and auction bidders for one last "pickers' paradise weekend. What remains is presently a mystery, but we do hope to know next week. I'm not particularly happy as I'm in Fiji that weekend!!!
FOOTNOTE: The young chap who ran the business of the auction and lead in for the auction company was won over and now owns a relatively good P4 90, whilst the doc's long time mechanic took the last lot sole #143, a P5 at a great price... so some of the legend will live on in the Rover community. Given a good number of the lots fell to 'new' Rover owners we are actively driving for them to join; and if so the average age of our club is likely to fall dramatically