The Urge To Splurge
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Written by Steve R. Lowry
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Tuesday, 17 February 2009 |
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Barrett-Jackson's classic-car auction gives automotive diehards the chance to buy, sell, and gawk.
Perched on the auction block under the heat of spotlights, camera crews, video monitors, and thousands of spectators, the gleaming 1938 Packard convertible coupe--with its wide-eyed luxury--was an otherworldly if elegant flashback. "See that guy over there in the third row, the redhead with the yellow shirt?" car collector Gordon Apker asked, gesturing over the crowd. "He's the preeminent Packard dealer in the country. If he puts in a bid for it, then you'll know the car's for real--but he'll wait until the last minute." I watched as the bidding swirled noisily from $50,000 up to $75,000. Still no move from Red. Two other potential buyers were ping-ponging back and forth until, sure enough, one of the auction's ringmen standing near Red threw up his hand and yelled, "We have $75,500!" Apker smiled knowingly.
A serious collector who spends his time buying, selling, and restoring his collection of 50 rare and one-off cars, Apker had come to this, the 27th annual Barrett-Jackson classic car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz., (held in January) to do some business--and to give me a few pointers on buying a classic car at auction. He and I were seated near the block under the big top, along with the heavy hitters, watching a sheet-metal parade that is often described as the New York Stock Exchange of the automotive world. Like that other U.S. market, classic cars bottomed at the start of the 1990s and have been steadily climbing ever since.
The four-day event attracted every breed of car geek, from guys willing to drop $3,885 on a 1954 Ford Skyliner to Fortune 500 types who thought nothing of spending $850,000 on a 1933 Rolls-Royce PII Brewster Special Town Car. All weekend the air was filled with the urgent, warlike sound of helicopters carrying the money to and from the airport, where private jets clogged the field. One minute I spotted Reggie Jackson kicking tires, the next it was Times Mirror CEO Otis Chandler scrutinizing a paint job. From the Left Coast, actor Edward Herrmann was on hand to oversee the sale of his 1936 Packard Custom LeBaron Convertible Victoria, which he had lovingly restored on TV; it sold for $85,050. And Tim Allen, whose wife was sick, watched the auction broadcast live on Speedvision and bought a 1960 Chrysler 300F convertible for $69,825 by phone. The hot desert air grew thick with vehicular pontification; all day long I overheard statements like, "No, no, that particular model had the 21-stud motor."
I was there to catch "prime time"--Saturday afternoon from two through early evening, when the most important cars and collectors came together in one big ear-ringing, sweaty cattle call. Real-time monitors hung from the rafters, flashing current bids in U.S. and Canadian dollars, pounds, swiss francs, marks, yen, and won. (Asia crisis? What Asia crisis?) More than 100 international buyers had flown in for the event, and one collector had even jetted in from Hong Kong to pick up a few items on his shopping list.
I stood by and toyed with my platinum bidder's photo ID--yes, the folks at Barrett-Jackson were dumb enough to arm me with an unlimited purse, and I was dumb enough not to use it--as a 1973 Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spyder throttled into place. It went for $349,650, an indication, as most of Barrett-Jackson's prices are, of the classic-car market for the year; apparently Italian stallions are getting hot again.
"American sports cars have taken a step up, too--Corvettes, '55 to '57 Thunderbirds, and early Mustangs are market indicators," explained Apker. Soon after, an immaculate '57 T-bird F convertible fetched an astonishing $135,000. "It must be a record!" crowed Craig Jackson, the auction's ebullient president.
It seemed that most bidders weren't there to second-guess the market, though. One British gentleman, reliving his youth, won a costly bidding war for a '66 Ferrari 275/GTB--the exact vehicle he had waited 25 years to buy. The telltale glint of acquirer's lust backlit the horde of faces, and caused arms to shoot up uncontrollably (not to mention a few bouts of morning-after blues, I'll wager). Apker's firm philosophy: "Buy what you like--if it makes money, it's a nice bonus."
But Apker believes in auction hardball. "Last year there was a particular car I wanted, and the owner knew it, so I hired a shill to bid for me. When the bidding got going, the owner kept looking my way, and I casually walked out of the tent," laughed Apker. "I saw him later, and he said, 'Hey, I thought you really wanted my car!' I told him I did--and that now I owned it."
So what did the master buy this year? Only the coolest damn car in the show: a one-of-a-kind 1954 Oldsmobile F-88 GM Motorama show car with a 250-hp 324-cc V-8. The car, a candidate to be GM's two-seater offering, lost out to the Corvette; never again would the Olds brand be allowed to attempt a sports car. The asking price was $550,000; Apker wouldn't say what he ended up paying.
Ah, but here's the catch: the finned gold Olds was one of 40 exceptional beauties that were quietly on sale in the Exposition tent--a low-risk, low-exposure environment for high-end sales. Buyers at that level, Apker explained, don't like the spotlight of the block. "I'm not a real visible bidder--the whale only gets harpooned when it spouts," he said. Among other Expo highlights: a one-of-a-kind '63 Fliptop Cobra and a 1937 Adler Competition, one of three built and the only example in existence.
After such heady machines, I needed to get back to the realm of the realistic; luckily, Barrett-Jackson makes it pretty easy to find cool wheels at any level. The auction company offers morning courses on how to bid, distributes tip sheets to all registered bidders and consigners, and hires a bidder liaison to answer questions. If you're serious about a car, there's an independent mechanic on site to perform under-the-hood due diligence. And if a car doesn't sell, it is brought down to an adjacent 29-acre polo field, where you can inspect it at your leisure and dicker with the owner. There's even a test track nearby, in case you want to take the object of your desire for a pre-purchase spin. No other car auction in the world offers such amenities (not to mention carnivalesque aisles of food, merchandise, memorabilia, a kid zone, classic-car insurance agents, a fashion show, etc.). It's not an auction, it's an adventure.
Toward the end, though, even my fuel-drenched heart was running on empty--after all, there were more than 800 handpicked cars and $17 million in sales. How many rare Chrysler Letter Series cars can you ogle? How many Jaguar XK 120s can you covet? How many Mercedes 300 SLs can you imagine yourself in before you get a wee bit jaded? I had hit the wall, or so I thought, until I spotted the eighth-to-last car to be auctioned that weekend. It was a 1955 Porsche 356 Speedster--a blindingly red bathtub, with all the little extras, like horizontal teardrop brake lights and wire-mesh headlight covers. I fell in love. Hard. But he went to the arms of another--for a mere $42,788. After all those six-figure bids, it seemed a small tragedy that such a hunk could be had so easily.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 February 2009 )
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