The Scottsdale Auctions Wrap-up - How Many is Too Many?

Six Collector Car Auctions in Two Weeks

By Steve Purdy
Detroit Bureau Chief
The Auto Channel

If you’re in the market for a collector car Phoenix is the place to be in January. Six - count ‘em, six - auctions lure thousands of people who have money burning holes in their pockets to the desert southwest. We were able to check out three and here’s what we found.

KRUSE:

We start with the 34th Annual Scottsdale Kruse Collector Car Auction & Show, not really in Scottsdale but in Litchfield, Arizona, in the sunny parking lot of the Phoenix International Raceway. A large tent houses the two-stage auction. Those who attend Kruse Auctions at the home base in Auburn, Indiana will recognize the format – with back-to-back auction blocks blasting in opposite directions. As we arrive our friend, collector car expert and notable Concours d’Elegance MC, Ed Lucas, introduces the cars on the east-facing stage with Dean Kruse barking out the progression of bids.

The variety of cars at Kruse is good with a few pre-war classics displayed inside the tent. Outside, everything else is scattered about with the exception of an orderly line of about 30 motorcycles. Most popular, of course, are the muscle cars and street rods. A few unusual unrestored cars for the project-minded, a few exceptional restored ones for the investor and a reasonable variety overall characterize this Kruse Auction.

A few of my favorites: a pristine restored red and white ’59 Rambler Ambassador Cross Country station wagon sporting gracefully curved tail fins; a pair of intriguing unrestored, special-bodied Cadillacs, reportedly from Argentina; a ’27 Model ”T” Fronty Ford Boat Tail racer built after WWII to run Pike’s Peak; an orange ’37 Ford sedan-delivery street rod; and a spectacular light-yellow Tri-Power ’65 GTO.

About 500 cars crossed the auction block in five days at Kruse. For results, schedules of upcoming events and lots of useful information log on to www.kruse.com.

SILVER:

Simultaneously across town Mitch Silver and his able band of car people are pumping collector cars through their auction – the Silver Fort McDowell, Arizona Auction. Fort McDowell is an Indian reservation with a rapidly growing casino near its Phoenix-facing border. We pull in about sunset on Saturday evening and there is plenty of action. We find Dave Silver, son of the owner, who is handling media relations. He tells us that they have a few full-time staff at the company but most of the folks working the event are car enthusiasts who do this using vacation time from their day jobs. As we slide into seats by the auction deck the pretty young woman hawking bids greets us and tries to get a feel for what we might be interested in. The auctioneers and commentators on the dais banter jokingly. Everyone seems to be having great fun.

About the same number of cars as Kruse – a tad less than 500 – and about the same quality of cars are evident, but a bit different mix. Because there are six auctions in town stiff competition requires some specialization or niche-ing, as someone put it. Mitch Silver tells me he’s after the $10,000 to $100,000 cars and he does not shy away from even lesser cars. We watched a very clean Chrysler LeBaron convertible sell for $1,800 with the auction staff working as hard on that one as any. Plenty of 2-door wagons of the 50s, lots of Corvettes, street rods, and some wonderful woodies preceded my favorite, a ’59 Borgward Isabella (anyone know what that is?) bought by a St. Louis wine merchant for $12,000. Presented in soft white the small, graceful body with odd-looking details looks as if it came from Ghia.

We are impressed with the friendliness and fun of the Silver approach to auctions. They do nearly 30 events a year – large and small - along the west coast and in Canada. Check out the website at www.SilverAuctions.com.

BARRETT-JACKSON:

Probably visible from the space station the Barrett-Jackson tent is the largest known to mankind. We estimate it’s between 1/4 and 1/3 mile long and about 100-feet wide. Aluminum trusses hold it all up. The auction stage is near the center facing thousands of chairs and bleacher seats. About 50 featured cars are displayed toward one end and vendors toward the other. A “lifestyle” tent is attached to the east end along side the large Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep display. “How many square feet,” you ask? A lot!

Then, outside another few dozen vendor and display tents, a media tent, staging area, and display areas overlook two full polo fields filled with more huge tents for cars, displays and vendors. Beyond that, on the far hill, more vendors and another tent housing a few dozen more featured cars. It goes on and on. This is the Granddaddy of all collector car auctions – about the size of your larger state fairs.

During the five days of auctions between 900 and 1,000 cars will find new owners. This number is doubly significant because for the first time the Barrett-Jackson will be entirely “no reserve”. That, of course, means that every car will sell if even one person bids on it. While some smaller auctions have experimented with that format this is the first time its been done on this scale.

We begin hanging around the grounds about a few days ahead of time, since we’re in town for the other auctions as well. Cars begin arriving a week ahead of time and each day more are gathering under the tents. We are struck by the quality of what we’re seeing. The selection criteria of the Barrett-Jackson folks is somewhat restrictive both to ensure variety and quality but we are still amazed at both. Then comes the action. Wednesday starts a tad slowly. Plenty of seats remain in the reserved-for-bidders section in front of the platform. Still, there is plenty of bidding going on and we’re astounded at some of the prices. The crowd and the pace intensifies and by mid-day Thursday we can barely trudge through the crowd or hear above the din. We manage to squeeze through to the featured cars area where we spend time interviewing the owners of the famous F-88 and the “Scotty” Corvette with retractable hardtop. Both, we find, will make great stories for another time.

We know of only one car that did not get a bid when it came to the dock on Thursday – a beautiful old ’54 Mercedes 300 B 4-Door Cabriolet. Go figure. And we know that the record was set with the sale of that ’54 Oldsmobile F-88 Motorama car at $3.2 million on Saturday evening. We haven’t seen the final results yet but we understand that T-Birds were hot and most observers continue to be flabbergasted at the prices commanded by the muscle cars and street rods. Is it a bubble, like the British cars of 15 years ago? Or is this an ever-upward trend? Only time will tell. Check out www.barrett-jackson.com.

THE OTHERS:

The one-day RM Auction at the Biltmore Resort specializes in six-figure cars. They featured a couple of limos, one with a history of hauling President Kennedy the other belonged to James Brown. Another featured car, an Aston Martin Zagato, is valued at over $2 million. See www.rmauctions.com.

The two-day Russo and Steele Auction is more of a boutique sale featuring sports and muscle cars, like a ’63 racing Cobra, a Gull-Wing Mercedes and lots of Corvettes. The Cobra, driven onto the stage by Allen Grant who raced the car in its hay day, brought over $2 million in a bidding frenzy. Results and details are at russoandsteele.com.

And, finally . . . the magazines listed a sixth auction, but I can’t find it. Isn’t five enough, after all?