January can only mean one thing to classic car buffs. It is classic car auction time in Arizona! There are actually six venues in the Phoenix, AZ region that host auction houses in just one week; resulting in a collective SEVENTEEN days worth of auctions. If there is a marquee of a car desired, this is the place to find it! In just one week, the six auction companies rolled into town and sold altogether over 2,800 cars for $253 million dollars.
Barrett-Jackson is just one of the auction houses selling cars here; but is best known due to their size, number of cars being offered for sale and their live television coverage. Plus Barrett-Jackson had a new venue to sell at. This year viewers could watch them on a collaboration of Fox cable channels and on Saturday afternoon, the first live coverage of a car auction on a broadcast nationwide channel occurred. One benefit of the television coverage, beyond name recognition, is the prices of cars go up when the TV lights come on! With the help of those lights, they sold 1,401 cars for over $113 million.
Most of the cars offered by Barrett-Jackson at the Scottsdale, AZ auction are with "no reserve", which is unusual for a car auction. This means that the seller agrees to sell the car for the final bid price. Other auction houses will allow most cars to be offered with a "reserve", meaning there is a minimum (undisclosed) price that the seller needs before the car can be sold. Barrett-Jackson figures that the car won't sell for a higher price anywhere else. So except for a select few "Salon Collection" cars, all cars are sold for whatever they bring on that day and time.
Barrett-Jackson also collects a commission on both sides of the sale. So if a car sells for $100,000 on the auction block; the buyer must actually pay $110,000 (plus potential state taxes and transport costs to get it home). And the seller pays the same 10% commission, so from the selling price of $100,000; the buyer will only collect $90,000. The prices listed here include the buyer's commission.
As an example of the volume of cars offered, over 130 Corvettes were offered; from bone stock originals to full done custom modified coupes. The top two selling cars at the auction, were in fact Corvettes. The second highest selling car was the, “Rebel” selling for a cool $2,860,000. This was one of four 1969 Corvettes made by Chevrolet with full road racing specs. After a great history of racing it was scrapped in 1972 and disappeared before a well known restorer found it. It came with a L88 engine with open chamber heads, a rock crusher Muncie M22 four speed and a dual disk clutch.
The highest selling car at the Barrett-Jackson Auction was a 1967 Corvette L88 that sold for $3,850,000. For the limited production freaks, there were only TWENTY L88's made in 1967 and this was the only red on red model. Perhaps most surprising, the odometer was only showing 11,800 miles! This is the highest price paid for a Corvette at a public auction!
Each morning the auction starts up with automobilia; from original car manufacturer advertising porcelain signs to oil cans and anything else car related. These are similar to what is offered for sale in the back pages of Auto/Truck Round-Up; though perhaps in slightly better condition! And then the cars start rolling up to the auction block.
Barrett-Jackson also hosts auctions in Florida and Nevada during the year but the undeniable "King Kong" of classic car auctions is held in Scottsdale in January. So make plans on coming down to warm weather and plenty of cars next January.