The Barrett-Jackson car auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, took place last weekend, (for results go here), and it had some interesting aspects to it. Here is a sampling of some of the cars that were sold and the prices for which they were sold:
1954 Chevy Corvette - $100,000,
1956 Chevy convertible $103,000,
1957 Chevy Belair convertible - $94,000,
1958 Chevy Impala convertible - $104,000,
1967 Chevy Corvette convertible - $135,000,
1967 Farrari 365GT (once owned by William Holden) - $80,000,
1969 Chevy Camaro $112,000. [spelling corrected 1/30/04]
Those old Chevrolets certainly generated a frenzy! The prices paid for some of those old cars were so astonishingly high that after a while it became almost surreal.
They tried hard to make it an entertaining show. However, the most efficient and entertaining way to experience it was to tape it and watch while applying a slight thumb pressure to the fast forward button slowing just long enough to note the make and model of the car and the final selling price.
(Aside: This deserves a whole post of its own, but what a great time saving device the fast forward feature of the VCR is! It's a time machine! It's one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century - right up there with the Xerox machine, the word processor and the Big Gulp.)
Back to the auction, there were some interesting aspects of the process. Most of the bidders were men, and the bidding competition got their juices flowing, and by juices I mean testosterone. The Barret-Jackson people had employees in the crowd who would try to whip up the excitement of the bidders. Most of the employees were men too, but there was one attractive woman among them. But, she was dressed just like the men - white shirt, coat, tie - and the bosses didn't appear to be utilizing her talents as much as they could have. Anyone who has watched "The Apprentice" has learned, (as if they didn't already know), a gorgeous babe can outsell a man any day of the week.
So, what the Barrett-Jackson people should have done was have a few more "Apprentice" type gorgeous babes out there in the audience to really gin up the competitive spirits of all those deep pocketed guys. A middle aged man with a fat wallet, a mid-life crisis, and a beautiful woman to impress - the car sellers dream customer!
$112K for a '69 Camaro?! Amazing.
They surely were bad cars, but do they really qualify for that kind of adoration. Well, I suppose beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.
(My uncle had one of the original Z-28s. He was a hazard to everyone in the county!)
Posted by: Eric | January 28, 2004 at 08:15 PM
That particular auction got pretty wild, and the high bidder was a Chevrolet dealer and Corvette collector. He must have really wanted that car.
Posted by: George | January 29, 2004 at 02:04 PM
I've been to enough producing property auctions to understand the dynamics that come into play when you have two motivated bidders. Let's hope the winner wasn't later overcome with cognitive dissonance.
Posted by: Eric | January 29, 2004 at 08:30 PM
Watching an auction with motivated bidders is certainly more entertaining than one in which the only bidder is a secured creditor.
As for the buyer of the Camaro, he was a car dealer himself, and if he overpaid for the car then that just might be some form of justice.
Posted by: George | January 30, 2004 at 02:37 PM