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CLASSIC INTEREST
Auction goers are off their blocks
Renowned Barrett-Jackson Auction has become a three-ring circus
By David Grainger
Thursday, February 19, 2004
I knew it would happen. Every year after the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, I get a deluge of calls offering to make me rich. These calls are generally about a car "just like the one at the auction" that the owner will sell me for far less than the auction car, so I can make some money on it.
In most cases, the car offered is an old junker or poorly restored, and is only a shadow of the vehicle that the seller has seen during televised coverage of the auction. But, and this is a big but, even if the car is in perfect condition in comparison to the auction car, it still would not attain anything close to the auction prices. Here's why. The Barrett-Jackson Auction used to be the yardstick against which the next year's best selling collectibles and classics could be measured. It was the first large auction of the season and attracted buyers, sellers and most notably, dealers, from all over North America. While there was lots of hoopla, there was also a lot of business done among dealers and collectors, and you could get a real feel for which cars had investment potential, which were in the doldrums and, most importantly, what prices were going to be over the next few months. Being the first event of the season, it was also the one whose auction results would be closely emulated by all the auctions that followed.
This is patently not true now. While undeniably the largest auction event going these days, the Barrett-Jackson Auction has turned into an aberration, something that has been altered by the media, which covers it relentlessly for hour after hour on live television. It's the auction's media success that has turned it from reliable seasonal indicator of the collector car hobby into a three-ring circus in which reality is suspended from the Thursday night cocktail party until the car pickup Monday morning.
There are inevitably a lot of very sorry people by Monday morning, when buyer's remorse becomes a palpable entity around the auction tents.
So how is it, you wonder, that seemingly intelligent and successful individuals can be lulled into bidding wars that see cars like a Z28 Camaro, usually worth around $40,000, selling for $100,000 more?
There are numerous factors involved and the auction house very carefully orchestrates the whole atmosphere that surrounds the bidders. This orchestration creates a capsule in which everyone lives and breathes nothing but the auction and cars for four days. It includes bidders bars where free liquor flows from bottles held by comely bartenders, to complete hospitality services on site or in locations carefully planned and executed to keep the mood of the buyers centred on one thing: Spending money.
The bidders become willingly ensnared in a surrealistic world in which the steady drone of money being spent becomes the wallpaper surrounding their every move.
After a day or so, even seasoned auction goers might start to lose track of the real values of the automobiles crossing the auction block, nodding in agreement with the auctioneer about what a great deal the buyer is getting when a car worth $50,000 passes the $100,000 mark.
This year the stupidest acquisition had to be a Lincoln Zephyr Custom. Its owner had bought the car at another auction for around $100,000, and at the urging of friends who thought he had been ripped off, he put it into the Barrett-Jackson. His hope, I have been told, was to recover most of what he spent. Imagine his surprise when it sold for over $400,000. Rather like winning the lottery for the seller and a nightmare for the new owner if he ever hopes to recover a fraction of what he spent.
Imagine the disgust of the dealers who were there, many of whom I have spoken to since, and who are still shaking their heads in disbelief. One dealer from Phoenix, Arizona, who is a good friend of mine, said it was the first time he had seen 3,000 jackasses all crammed into one corral.
Since the auction, I have had at least six calls from people who want me to restore their Mustangs and other muscle cars for free, insisting they will then cut me in on the profit when they sell. I got a couple of calls from clients who think I should raise the asking prices on cars they have up for sale and other calls from clients who are mad at me because I did not take their cars to the auction to sell.
I have to admit that I missed going to the Barrett-Jackson Auction this year as I had other commitments. Now I can say that I'm glad I didn't go, as there is nothing worse than seeing bad cars sell for too much money. An aberration like this also tends to bring all the old junkers out of the woodwork and it can take months for things to get back to normal and for reality to get a grip.
My first auction this year will be the RM Auction at the Ritz Carlton at Amelia Island in Florida this March. Maybe this auction, held along with the Concours d'Elegance at Amelia, will become the first major auction event that dealers and collectors can rely on to indicate the coming year's collector car index.
Hopefully, the media's cameras will be banned.
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