Arizona observations and analysis

I didn't watch too closely...Are there any specific price comparisons for particular cars sold this weekend vs. 2007, 2006 or 2005?

As usual, the Speed commentators seemed to be agents of B-J. (To be fair, I suppose they were there more to describe the cars than to interpret what was going on from a financial perspective.)

Jack

 

A few comments I noticed with the Speed announcers this year:

They seemed to be more willing to comment on questionable issues and over paying. They still won't come out and say anything directly but they did let out more coded responses.

QAlso saw more concerted effort by BJ to avoid issues of not recognizing bids from the audience. All I can think is that the lawsuit settled just before the auction on the Ramcharger car from last year must have had an affect on the BJ operations.

For an assortment of reasons we saw fewer hours this year than in the last couple of years so my observations may not be representative.

Jeff

 

I hope that plenty of the wheeler dealers lost their shirts. Profiteering and crooked wheeling and dealing has caused the price of every old car in the country to artificially skyrocket over the last few years. I hope the wheeler dealers take a bath. Serves them right for trying to corner the market on every collector car in the country. Every area has its local "wheeler dealer" who attempts to buy up every Corvette, Mustang, Ferrari, or whatever so that he can resell for a quick profit instead of letting Joe Enthusiast get his hands on the car first.

Wheeler dealers in action:
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I went in the early evening 3 days, had a blast and made some money. Instead of betting on which of us could come closest to the final bid, we started betting on who could call the final number of "this is way, way under the money folks" from Craig Jackson. With one car it got to a high of 15 times late Saturday night (I won that one)!

 

interesting, i thought the muscle was still going for assinine #'s. A non numbers aar cuda went for 100K. that's way outa line. Not to mention the 328 and the 456.

 

I really think that on Saturday they were very disappointed (and so were the viewers) that no car brought near what the Supersnake did from last year. The two cars I was surprised at, were the Duesenberg, and the "Rondine" concept car. I didn't know what they would bring before I went, but when I saw them in person I thought they would both sell for way more than they did (based on the last couple years of skyrocket numbers). Craig Jackson just looked frustrated most of Saturday. I believe Craig had much higher expectations even with a different economic climate this year. It didn't matter that a lot of stuff was still selling crazy high, he would just keep saying "this is way, way under the money folks". It was just funny because we had never remembered him saying it nearly as much the previous couple of years.

 

Agree the "Way under the money" lectures from Craig were way, way up this year. He sounded like a broken record up there. If you're gonna throw a No-Reserve auction, and someone steals a car or two - hey, those are the breaks.

The Robosaurus auction was of particular interest to me. I was 20 feet from the guy who ended up winning it, and I got the feeling that he was legit, but I could not verify where any other bids were coming from. Did anyone see the other bidder(s)?

From my position in the crowd, it went:

Shill/single bids 100,000 - 400,000
Craig Jackson 450,000 (long bidding drought after this one - I thought he just might get stuck with it)
Winning Bidder 475,000
??? (Shill?) 500,000
Winning Bidder 525,000
??? (Shill?) 550,000
Winning Bidder 575,000

Anyone care to fill in the gaps? I'm happy to be wrong on this point, but I've been going to Barrett-Jackson auctions for 6 years now, and I feel that my shillometer is pretty well tuned to how they can occasionally work an individual bidder.

 

Interesting thoughts.

The Duesy was right at 1. Speed mentioned the reason, said it didn't matter, but it did. The body was not original to the car and the restoration was done many years ago. To go through a Duesy is big money. A "Major" service can be 300K if your talking "Total" restoration it's 1 million. Two other's sold that night and they brought more.

The Rondine was a good buy at 1.6 but remember it's Corvette based not Ferrari based which is a factor.

The numbers at RM and Gooding were fine but I agree that the Bubble has burst on Muscle cars as it should have.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0119milliondollar0120-ON.html

 

I have to wonder how much is due to bidder hysteria fueled by the opportunity for TV face time. Don't ever underestimate the power of a couple hundred thousand bucks burning a hole in your pocket and the chance at some serious ego gratification. How can you put a price on having all of your high school buddies see you now 40 years later buying the big block whatever you all wanted back then?

 

++. I watched the train wreck on and off both Sat. and Sun.; the muscle cars - well everybody who has ever bought some Oklahoma oil well shares pretty much knew where that was going to go.

What got to me were some very nice classic sports/GT cars that went for probably 20% off the usual asking prices; I mean by this XKE, Austin Healey, mid-year Corvettes, etc.

Of course, I wasn't there to see it with my own eyes, so maybe these were not the condition #1 that they were saying...

Also stated to the point of absurdity by the announcers - "well, now - this is a CUSTOMIZED CAR, so you have to be finding a buyer who wanted it customized just like YOU did to ever get your money back" == (I can't believe they got 22.5 for it)

Wonder if this is the first little marital scrap between B-J and Speed Channel after the long happy honeymoon?

 

What did the modified Daytona coupe that Russo and Steele sold bring?



Terry

 

I don't know about a dissolution of relationship with BJ and Speed though... the announcers were really pushing the auction as much as ever and I was going to be sick if I heard 'that was well bought' again. I would love to see some insider info leaked about the shill policy and running bidders that goes on with this sale. I can't believe anyone bids on cars at a sale where employees/principals of the business are allowed to bid on auction vehicles, where the gavel can indicate a sale then bidding magically resumes, and where mystery bidders disappear and leave 100k plus gaps in actual bid to current asking numbers.

 

These suits may lead to investigations now that everyone involved isn't making money like they used to. Just like MLM or Ponzi schemes people look the other way when all is well but when it hits the fan the dirty little secrets come out. Don't know if they do these things they've been accused of or not or if it's legal or not myself.


Not making predictions just wondering.

 

What other network would sign on and give Craig Jackson the control he has at speed? It would be nice to have blunt, non-sugar coated analysis of the auction though.

 

And maybe cut back a little on the 59 hours of tedium? Like I said, I betcha the suits at Speed are probably drawing up a ratings analysis and a serious back-room caucus on what to do about this next year.

 

Muscle car prices were softening last year, so it is no surprise that when you put a up a large, "no reserve" sale, blood will flow under the tent. The main thing that fuels boom markets in collectibles (besides easy money) is the thought by potential buyers that they have to buy now or pay more later, not to mention people who buy them as "investments". When a market peaks (and they always do) and prices begin to soften, the opposite psychology takes hold. Investors are gone and true collector/enthusiasts wait to see how low they can go. Declines in super heated collectible markets can be breathtaking. This pattern has been repeated over and over again in markets ranging from beanie babies to fine art.

The market for collectible foreign exotics will probably fair better becasue 1. prices haven't gone as nuts and 2. the weak dollar. But, if the european economy gets seriously weak and/or the dollar strengthens---look out.

Dave

 

I will bet that the ratings were up this year. We all have to remember all the hype that went around the internet and TV about the "5 million dollar cobra". I think the ratings next year will be a different story.

 

Did anyone else think that "Blastolene" special went way cheap. I figured they were looking for $750k or so for that

 

Part of the Dallas f/chat group met George Barris on Sunday morning, and he said the guy had $2 million in the car, and was in tears when it sold in the $500k's.

He also told them he thought the Monkeemobile might bring $2million but was okay with the $350k it went for.

 

I'll bet the business relationship between BJ and Speed is pretty interesting. The whole production is a BJ commercial, so do they pay for the time, or does Speed pay for program content? Who has production control over what is said, what is covered, etc? Then there's the matter of the "reality" programming that amounts to leftovers, fed to the viewers in the run-up to the auction. I wonder if BJ has the ability to bar Speed from covering competitive auctions, too.

On another subject, has anybody else had enough of Ol' Shel yet? The way he's treating SAAC is a disgrace. There are some pretty respected guys from his era still around who refer to him as "Billy Sol", whom some of us of a certain age remember as a Texas huckster and scam artist.

Jack

 

I have. Agree totally.

 

I bet he was. A lot of work went into that one.

 

At the price it went for I may have considered a run at Blastolene. I know what went into it so I figured it was headed towards a million so I didn't bother with it.This is why auctions can be fun. You never know which car will represent the true opportunity amongst the offerings. I have seen the auction car at SEMA as well as Jay Lenos Blastolene, the work quality approaches the great coach builders of the 20s and 30s.I have never owned or had any interest in "custom" ,but I have always admired the 30s Delahayes with either the Chapron or Figoni et Filatchi bodwork from a far. This Blastolene is the closest to a modern variant.