The GM Futurliner.
Over the past year I've swatted over and over again at uninformed rumors about the GM Futurliner which sold for $4 million plus 8% commission at Barrett-Jackson in January 2005.

The simple fact is: It sold, for $4 million plus commission, was delivered to the buyer's museum in Chandler, Arizona on Monday after the sale, and the sellers got a wire transfer for $3,680,000 ($4 million less the 8% seller's commission) within two weeks.

I organized the wire and worked with both Barrett-Jackson and the sellers' accountant to ensure that it took place.

The Futurliner transaction was not orchestrated. The Futurliner was not pre-sold at some lesser price, then stage-managed on the block to appear that it was something it was not. The deal was as it appeared and money -- based on a $4 million bid -- changed hands.

There was a glitch on the block when a ringman mistakenly signaled there was a $4.1 million bid when the bidder had in fact waved off the bid. Steve Davis, Craig Jackson and the rest of the B-J crew went to work afterward to put the deal together and it was done before SPEED went off the air on Saturday evening. I sat on the block and waited, so I could inform the sellers.

$4 million for the Futurliner is hard to accept, and it is tempting to believe rumors that there was more showmanship than salesmanship in the transaction. Those rumors are inaccurate.

Rick Carey
December 22, 2006

There is Heavy Money out there.
It's not just in the collector car market. People are spending boxcar loads of money on paintings, sculpture, photographs, books, you-name-it.
We left Monterey in August having looked at unprecedented amounts changing hands.
If there was any weakness in the market it was in the middle, to borrow a phrase from an ambitious lender, the HELOC ("home equity line of credit") segment.
Have these buyers been scared off by reduced liquidity or market value in the residential real estate market?
But in the following months the rule of large numbers has come to the fore.
That's "Large Numbers Rule", and buyers who have large numbers to spend have shown no reluctance whatsoever to writing checks.

The collector car market -- like the contemporary painting, photography, sculpture, etc. markets -- is showing signs of stratification.
It will be informative to see how stratification -- if any -- is evidenced in the January collector car auctions in Arizona as well as the lower profile but still important January auctions in Florida.

Rick Carey
December 17, 2006