Who loves this auction besides me?
Anyone else stomp down to watch this killer auction?

 

I have no interest, even though I live nearby.

 

I like watching, particularly the early days. I am watching the Mecum auction this week from Fla. Some good buys on what I call late model future collectors, 80s, 90s.
I also consider car auctions an indicator of the economy.

 

Not anymore.

 

Lately the only indicator I see is the amount of stupidity in the pricing. I went to the Mecum auction in Dallas this past year and IMHO saw some really stupid money spent on cars worth no where near what they went for based on condition.

 

I agree about stupid money spent, TV doesn't show condition well. But if someone has money to spend stupidly, the economy is better. However, paying stupid money hurts those of us that don't have it to spend.

 

Stupid money paid for bogus cars. The TV coverage only convinces Joe Dirt that his POS "barn find" is worth six figures. No thanks. Definitely NOT helping the hobby.

 

This one at Mecum is sweet:

http://www.mecum.com/auctions/lot_de...gn=FL0114-F279

 

I agree, but people now go to the Mecum auctions and are starting to pay BJ pricing for crap. Seriously, the TV makes em look really nice. Lots of lipstick on pigs rolled through there. And your right Joe, the folks watching then think their POS's are going to make them rich. Don't get me wrong there were some nice cars that rolled through also but...

 

I agree the prices make me barf but...

The volume of cool cars and I am a "car guy" I love just checking out the cars via TV. I dif it despite the crazy prices and all that that encompasses.

 

Makes me want to sell my cars there. If someone wants to get stupid with their money... I am a poor boy and would be more than happy to let someone over pay for my car. Only thing is, I would NEVER misrepresent my car. The car is what it is, I will never make a reproduction window sticker or anything. I guess in my case it would not bring stupid money becaues i would be honest.

I do agree with Joe, I have seen it personally. People think there 70 4 door 6 cylender is worth $$$$, or a barn fresh 70 442 W-30 is worth restored price because they seen a car on TV go for crazy money.

 

Alcohol and money create expensive purchases regretted by buyers the following day. Like a lot of things, keep the booze flowing and crazy things happen!

 

It does help back off the a-holes that want to get on our backs for driving 'dinosaurs' and 'tanks'.




Just saw a 'Vette go for 3.5 mil '. Because it's rare. To me, rare just means 'trailer queen' ... and imp, that's no longer a car at that point. It's one of those Dale Earnhardt collector dishes that collect nothing but dust.

 

I still like sundays when the custom and restomods go up. There are still some deals compared to the amount of work and money that went into them.

 

I turned it off after somebody paid $80k for a 1970 Malibu Classic dressed up like an SS454... where are these guys when I'm selling one of mine?

 

I agree with Joe P. and the others. The televised auctions are a circus - period. It's an opportunity for a bunch of knuckleheads to get on TV and show us all how much money they have.
As a result, as mentioned above, half wits figure their turd is worth megabucks. Recently I was in SoCal at a wrecker who had a '67 cutlass coupe in the yard. There was not ONE useable part on this car - no joke - even the roof pan was caved in and the guy wanted 2 grand for the complete car.
It's up to us here to keep it real.

 

They're auctioning a '71 442 W-30 right now....beautiful!

 

I dont think its a big deal if someone has the cash to spend thats their business...now everyone here contributes to the problem by either selling or buying something thats pricey,i dont think much either about someone with an ugly wife girlfriend boyfriend whatever...also if i think how much i have spent over the years on bottled water then i say " who is really the nutcase"" ??

 

It's entertainment to watch and it's little more than entertainment for the car buyers. It does however represent an income or living for what are often under appreciated restoration specialists. Let the ultra wealthy over-pay, they aren't any happier with their cars than we are with ours.

 

I was not entertained. Ford with a "427 small block" uh huh.

way too many ads
then back to the "show" where a camera glides quickly past a shiny vehicle, no time for details let alone accurate ones.

Yammerin' stutterin' gol dang auctioneer finally drove me off, could not take any more of that crap.

Nice cars, of course, exceedingly poor presentation as an entertainment show, if you want to see THE CARS and accurate details about them. Makes Fat & Loud [sic] look like a good show.

 

Sure, it is a glitz and glam production, but many of the cars are awesome. Not sure that I will ever be interested in selling my 70-442 convertible, but its fun to see the trends in sale prices year over year.

 

IMO, anyone on this board knows more about the cars rolling across that stage than the presenters do. I know I could do a better job of describing one off details about HemiCudas and such. These guys just plain stink. And yes, you are right. No time to show you what you really want to see. Just glitz and glamor and on to the next car! Sheesh. Cap, you stole my line. I was 2 seconds behind ya! Just like in a real race!

 

Well, there are five more hours of this entertainment on tomorrow. Be there...

Some of you fellas clearly don't read other posts in their entirety.

 

This car went for 106,700 and I think from what I can see the bumper isn't even straight.

 

A straight bumper is 20K more.

 

I did not see the car in question, but Ford Racing does sell 427 SBF crate motors. Others, such as Roush, also sell such motors.

I will say that I happened to catch about 15 minutes of the auction while flipping through the channels Saturday, and the first thing I did was mute the sound due to the inane commentary from the announcers. Much of what they said was BS. I particularly liked the comment about the height of the wing on the Hemi Superbird. The announcer pointed out that the wing was that high to take advantage of the airflow off the roof of the car, or some such crap. The reality is that the original Daytona/Superbird wing was much lower to reduce drag. Unfortunately, the lower wing limited the trunk lid opening to only about 6". I've seen a photo of that prototype. You'll notice that the production wing is sized to give the trunk lid about 1/2" clearance as it opens.

Airflow off the roof indeed!

 

That's what I meant when I said anyone here could do a better job at describing the cars on stage. It's unnerving. Mute button, on.

 

As the owner of 2 Ford 427 motors, I can confirm Ford used to make them. They're just not that small.
Guessing the 429, 460 motors would be big blocks, the 302, 351 small blocks, the 390, 427 were just FE motors.

 

Good lord! I just looked up the sellers fees, bidders fees, buyers fees, gate fees, car entry fees, food prices..... The only people getting rich are Barrett Jackson. They will bring in $20,000 for selling a $100K car.

 

I'm surprised at all the negativity and nitpicking here of the auction. Eric, I can guarantee you there were more then "some nice cars" at the auction!! I'm guessing you have never physically spent a day or two wandering around the Scottsdale B-J auction and looking at all the (1400) cars on display before they go on the block.
Joe, your broad blanket statement "Stupid money paid for bogus cars", are you referring to just the B-J auction or are you including the other 5 auctions that were in the valley this week, that's thousands of cars. It sounds like you're implying every transaction was with stupid money and all cars are bogus, I would have to guess you have never been to the Scottsdale auction week either. To make such blanket statements without physically seeing the cars is irresponsible. This week 350,000+ plus people went thru the gates at B-J alone, not counting Goodin, R&M, Silver, Russo& Steel and the other auction houses, how can this be bad for the hobby? Our local weekly car show swells to 2000 entrys during this week. Maybe I'm just reading to much into this, but I'm pleased that our cars are getting exposure...........

 

Respectfully Joe, you must have been watching a different program because when the superbird I saw go through it was stated that the wing was that high to facilitate the trunk opening, I had never heard that before.

Many of the cars were custom and pro-touring that brought big money. I can see if you are a stickler for original rather than betterment the show probably gets under your skin, but custom is the trend, at least for now.

 

I think Mike Joy knows his Oldsmobiles pretty well. They can't get hyper technical because they have about 90 seconds per car and many viewers aren't car geniuses and don't want to be. Just like I don't want NFL announcers getting overly technical about plays. I don't care. Just need enough info to enjoy the show.
Terry

 

 

Lol so true . Well I feel better now that my addiction to only drinking Poland spring water is not a unique case. Geez one day times well 10 years wow yeah that's a set of d heads done lol

 

@1970-W30, I was talking about the Mecum auction that I went to last fall that rolled pigs with lipstick across. The BJ auction is for the people that lots of money to spend and drive the average price of cars up.


Joe is correct about the wing story. The prototypes interfered with the trunk opening all the way. Plus those Superbirds and Daytonas were not a very sought after car at the time because they were so goofy looking to drive on the street. Some never got sold, and were stripped at dealerships for parts.

 

I spent a few evenings there this week. Had a blast hanging out, people and car watching. I loved the green 56 Caddy with the huge blower sticking out of the hood.

I checked out the "W" cars pretty thoroughly as I was there partly to look some over for a potential buyer.

A few of them were really bad. I could go on for hours about the issues I saw. Stupid money for cars that needed lots of work to be correct. To each his own. It's just obvious that those that bought them were not Olds nuts like most of us. No way you pay that kind of money for a car with stupid issues that an Olds enthusiast would easily catch before a purchase.

Most of these cars were not restored by Olds experts either. If I had a dollar for every backwards valve cover, maybe I could have bid on something.

Body panels horribly misaligned (one W vert had to have been in a wreck as I don't know how the decklid could have been made to fit properly), several missing front fender braces, etc, etc.

The red 70 was a beautiful car. No docs, but the seller never claimed to have any w-machine proof. Don't go by the pictures from the website, those also showed no wiper arms. The bumper looked fine to me. I think they just finished the car before the auction as those issues were not there when I looked at it. Really well put together.

The 72 W30 vert was also really nicely done. Lots of paperwork (not that it needs it). Nice color too.....

It looked very correct. It went for $99k including fees.

And let's not forget the one of 16 special addition "bada bing" 72 Cutlass......$55k

Awesome event. I also got to sit and talk to Jack Watson for almost an hour.

Just have to keep everything in perspective I guess.

Joe

 

I caught it on the local FOX broadcast station, not cable. I don't know if the announcers were different or not. As I noted, I don't make it a habit of watching these auctions on TV. I did not make up the statement I quoted.

 

We have Dish network and they took off Speed network this past year and we now have some Fox sports station. I could not find BJ auction on my lineup. Wonder if its online?

 

Here's one of the phone bidders at BJ.

 

Must be different because the commentators covering the auction on the national geographic channel told the same story about the trunk lid clearances. So you must have been listening to different commentators than me.