Gooding & Company, Amelia Island, March 4, 2022
2022 was Gooding & Company’s best-ever Amelia Island auction, something that was not unforeseen after skipping 2021 entirely and settling for a modest 56 lot consignment of cars for a Geared Online sale at Scottsdale a few weeks earlier that brought in only $7 million. It also continued Gooding’s heavily Porsche Amelia contingent. 34 of […]
Bonhams, The Amelia Island Auction, March 3, 2022
Bonhams Amelia Island Auction was much like a return to the before-times with some wonderful cars, some long-static projects and a broad selection of pre-WWII classics and even half a dozen pre-WWI antiques. As the first of the surviving Amelia Island auctions it also was a chance to catch up with friends we haven’t seen […]
Gooding & Company, Scottsdale, January 28, 2022
Gooding & Company didn’t have an auction in Scottsdale this year. Instead, they held a live preview of the cars for a Geared Online auction at Bennett Dorrance’s posh Hangar 1 on the east side of Scottsdale airport. Gooding’s previous location adjacent to the Fashion Square Mall in downtown Scottsdale now appears to be a […]
RM Sotheby’s, Arizona Biltmore, Phoenix, January 27, 2022
RM Sotheby’s delivered its best Arizona auction results in five years, and it was in a single-day auction with just 69 cars in sharp contrast with 160 in 2017, 150 in 2016, 123 in 2015 and 126 in 2014 in their best two-day sales in 2017 back to 2014. The renewed focus on good stuff […]
Bonhams, Westin Kierland, Scottsdale, January 27, 2022
It felt good to get back to the verdant lawns, marquees and luxury Port-a-Potties in front of the Westin Kierland for Bonhams Scottsdale auction. The ’21 event was live previewed but with socially-distanced bidding largely on line and by phone. ’22 was all here, live, populated and up close and personal. Why were there only […]
Worldwide Scottsdale January 26, 2022
Worldwide Auctioneers opened the critical late week days of Scottsdale auction week, the first auction other than Barrett-Jackson selling cars. Their location, in Tempe physically, is conducive to the moderately-sized Worldwide concept and has the advantage of easy access, plentiful adjacent parking and a café on site that offers really good sandwiches and a pleasant […]
Barrett-Jackson 2022
Barrett-Jackson came back with a bang from the delayed 2021 Scottsdale auction, but more significantly from the years before with their low $100 million sale totals, putting up a record total that eased over $200 million with automobilia. It wasn’t that long ago where every possible transaction was pulled into the total to break $100 […]
Mecum Kissimmee 2022, Where Records Fell
“Pent up demand”? If there was ever such a thing it was at Mecum’s Kissimmee auction in January. First, the total: $204,267,329, a bit different from Mecum’s PR but this number is based upon their post-sale results list exclusive of “Road Art”, but still by a material amount beyond this year’s record-setting Barrett-Jackson vehicle auction […]
Bonhams, Goodwood Revival, September 18, 2021
Cataloging auction cars is an art requiring the cataloger to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, a Harold Arlen refrain made famous by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, among many others. There were some terrific cars in Bonhams Goodwood Revival auction in September, but a number of them had […]
RM Sotheby’s Jean Guikas Collection, Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet, France, August 19, 2021
For anyone with an appreciation of competition cars Circuit Paul Ricard – famous for its white curbs and red and blue painted runoff areas and the French Grand Prix – was the destination of choice on Friday August 19. Whether in person or on the interweb RM’s auction of the Guikas Collection was the place […]