Mecum Auctions, NRG Center, Houston, April 5-7, 2018
Mecum Auctions has found a serendipitous environment in Houston near the vernal equinox, bringing truckloads of cars, and selling truckloads of them, too. This isn’t Monterey, or even Indianapolis. It’s Houston with a median transaction in the high $20,000s and an average in mid- to high-$30,000s. It’s mainstream American car collecting. Even the high transactions […]
RM Auctions, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, April 6-7, 2018
Same venue, new name. Auctions America is now RM Auctions and the Ft. Lauderdale, Auburn Spring and Fall, Santa Monica and Hershey auctions will now be conducted under this title, differentiated from the RM Sotheby’s auctions in Scottsdale, Paris, London, Monaco, Monterey and the newly announced auction at Techno-Classica in Essen in April 2019. RM […]
Barrett-Jackson, WestWorld, Scottsdale, January 16-21, 2018
[Post updated April 4, 2018 with additional photos.] This is make-good, not only for subscribers and followers but also for Barrett-Jackson who accords me unusual access to the walled-off Salon cars and is cooperative with data. It was only two weeks after getting home from Arizona that I took off to cold, snow-covered Paris. Then […]
Gooding & Company, Amelia Island Plantation, Amelia Island, Florida, March 9, 2018
There were Porsches everywhere on Amelia Island this weekend. Among the three established auctions, Bonhams, Gooding and RM Sotheby’s, there were 73 of them. But nowhere were there more than at Gooding & Company’s Amelia Island Plantation auction: 38, 52% of the Amelia Island auctions’ Porsche population. And Gooding guessed right, selling 35 of them, […]
Bonhams, Fernandina Beach Golf Club, Fernandina Beach, Florida March 8, 2018
2018 marked Bonhams fourth year across Fernandina Beach Boulevard from runway 13/31 at Fernandina Beach Municipal Airport (FHB). The runway is closed for the duration of the auction, much to the relief of auction staff and attendees saved from ducking during the approach and runup before departure of the Citations and Gulfstreams of the glitterati […]
RM Sotheby’s, Ritz Carlton, Amelia Island, March 10, 2018
RM held its auction on Friday, March 9 starting at 3PM as the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance was for the second year in a row moved up to Saturday to avoid a threatening weather forecast. It made for a truncated auction week, slicing a day off the pre-auction viewing schedule. Gooding & Company remained at […]
GAA Classic Cars, Greensboro, NC, March 1-3, 2018
GAA Classic Cars’ Johnny Ransom had been suggesting for some time that I come to Greensboro for one of the GAA Classic Cars auctions. This spring auction’s schedule on the weekend before Amelia Island created the opportunity to combine both events in a single, long road trip. GAA Classic Cars is associated with the Greensboro […]
Leake Auctions, Oklahoma City, February 22-24, 2018
With $6.6 million in sales, a 72.4% sale rate and a $308,000 top sale (for a 2008 Mercedes SLR McLaren) Leake’s annual stop in Oklahoma City had a reduced consignment dictated by their change to a single lane but produced a total sale comparable with prior double-lane auctions. Seemingly routine in presentation, this may be […]
Worldwide Auctioneers, Scottsdale, January 17, 2018
Worldwide’s second year in the Valley of the Sun during Car Week (which really should be called “Auction Week” because that’s why everyone is here) featured a star studded consignment. As the numbers that follow show, the sell-through was down 15.1 points from last year. The total sale was off by over $5 million and […]
Gooding & Company, Fashion Square, Scottsdale, Arizona, January 9-10, 2018
This auction report got tripped up by a trip to Paris for the Retromobile week auctions which then, to compensate for an operator error on my part, had to go to the head of the auction report queue. Although not Gooding’s best Scottsdale auction (that was 2013’s $57.7 million followed by 2014’s $49.4 million) the […]