Where there's a wheel

collect call

At last, a solution to over-the-fence disputes. Buy this Czech tank from Sotheby's, park it on your neighbour's lawn, and watch attitudes change.

The estimate is pounds 13,000-pounds 15,000. You could pay for it at the sale of collectors' vehicles next Monday (4.30pm) at the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, fit it with rubber track treads and put it on the road. But, of course, there are those fuddy-duddy regulations restricting the use of 100mm shells.

Sotheby's describe the tank, which has fresh Russian markings, as a T55A MBT model, built by Russians inCzechoslovakia around 1965. It is in good running order: remember - only one belligerent owner.

Or, more realistically, try one of the ultimate Fifties' style-icons, a "bubble" car by Messerschmitt, the legendary German aircraft manufacturer, pounds 6,000-pounds 7,000 in Sotheby's sale of collectors' vehicles. If you don't fancy driving such a flimsy thing in today's traffic, settle for a 1930 pedal car on the sitting-room carpet - pounds 800-pounds 1,000 for a miniature Bullnose Morris, and spend an extra pounds 900-pounds 1,100 on a pre-war picnic set with copper kettle and burner.

If you really do enjoy make- believe on the sitting-room carpet, Sotheby's Grand Prix and Formula 1 sale offers the gear to dress up in - a 1989 pair of Nelson Piquet's racing overalls (pounds l,000-pounds 1,200) and a Moet et Chandon double magnum emptied then signed by Jacques Villeneuve after winning the Portuguese Grand Prix last year, estimated at pounds 800-pounds 1,000 at Sotheby's Grand Prix and Formula 1 sale tomorrow (10.30am).