Thread: Barrett Jackson?

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From the little bit I watched, it appeared that prices were up this year....good if you're a seller, not so good if you're a buyer, I guess. IMO, the auction did show that overall interest is up in Hot Rodding and collector cars. Best part of the auction to me was the amount of money that people were willing to bid on the cars that had the proceeds going to charity!!!! Show what kind of people Hot Rodders really are....

Last night, there was a corvette themed speed boat and matching vette that went for $675,000.

I was surprised that some things I thought would bring great prices, were not so great... and others seemed way too high.... like the '56 Desoto convertible.

As usual, it's hard to predict what will wind the watch of some bidders. There seemed to be more charity cars than usual, but then I don't sit and watch it for hours on end, so maybe what I saw was distorted. I may have seen a total of 4 hours for the whole week.

Having been a hemi owner those are of particular interest. The last couple years they've been pretty depressed compared to 3 and 4 years ago, which was the height of the home equity = cash machine era. I was a bit baffled by the Goldberg clone Dart going for over $100k, while the genuine '65 Belvedere I factory race hemi struggled to $80k. Obviously the wrong kind of buyers there for that kind of racing history car, but interest in "celebrity" owned car up there. The other one that surprised me was the '62 Galaxie/race boat combination, each with a Ford SOHC engine. The combo goes for $80k! It's not uncommon for the engine alone to bring $25k plus. Oh well.

I'm happy to see this thread hasn't brought out the usual BJ bashers. I see on a couple other forums the usual...."BJ is driving up the price of all cars, pretty soon I won't be able to afford anything.....waaa, waaaa, waaaaaa!". Bull hocky! Uninformed people might see some of the prices and think they can get $45k for their notch back '65 'Stang, but if knowledgable buyers keep passing it by eventually the starry eyed ignoramous will have to rejoin the real world if they need to sell. Just because someone asks the moon doesn't mean that becomes the new market. It's all in the hands of the real buyers, not the whiners.

The other silly comments are about how stupid the buyers there are with their money. I'm sure there are some who let their ego get in the way (not talking about the charity cars, that's a whole different kettle of fish) and succumb to bid fever and pay too much. But hey, it's their money, it's not like they're the government that just takes it from people, they had to do something to earn it. If they were smart enough to figure out how to provide something that others paid them very well for, they can't be all that stupid. And I can't imagine they're all lottery winners. Okay.....end of rant. After all, when it's all said and done, for those of us not there it's just entertainment.