I use to look forward to and sit thru weekends of barrett jackson but lately Ive noticed you cant even hear them talking about the cars due to the loud auction.

And that ya-hoo who screams like a frightened 13 year old girl really bugs the crap outta me. Cant they tune out all the auctioneer noise so you can learn about the old cars?

Thats my rant, thank you

 

Besides most of those cars look like trailer queens. You would have to be insanely rich to pay that much for ones of those and then take a chance and drive it.

 

Try watching the Mecum Auctions on Discovery HD instead.

You should see those cars in person - most of them are actually kind of a mess as far as the paint goes. Some are downright horrible. One of them, lot 651.1 (a black and silver over red 1957 Fuel Injected Corvette), used to look seriously bad until last night. I spent a few hours buffing it out since the builder ran out of time and didn't get it buffed out before he had to trailer it from the East Coast to Las Vegas in time for the auction. This car is crossing the block on Saturday, and so is the 1970 Hemi Cuda Convertible recreation built by the same guy. This car is actually going to be one of the Haggerty Fantasy Bid cars and it is gorgeous - B5 blue with white convertible top over white vinyl.

There are at least 4 Austin Healeys up for sale too, and all of them are gorgeous (easily my favorite cars at this event). Two of them are by Kurt Tanner out of Phoenix, and his cars always bring top dollar among big Healeys. They are stunning works of art.

But most of the cars, the vast majority really, are just used cars. Many are in only "good driver" condition (nothing wrong with that) and far from "trailer queens". They certainly aren't junk, but they aren't as nice as they appear on TV. Yes, there are some very nice cars here, but they tend to not be the very high end of the market. For that you need to go to RM Auctions or Gooding & Co. During the Scottsdale, AZ auctions every January B-J is by far the biggest - most days, most number of cars, highest dollar volume. But lat year they sold 1,100 cars for a total of about $63 million over 5 days. Gooding & Co. had a one day auction and sold 100 cars for $32 million. One tenth the number of cars, half the money. Guess who had the better cars?

B-J hasn't sold a million dollar car in almost two years. Last month in Monterey RM sold 16 cars over a million, several in the $2 - $4 million range. Except for a '64 Shelby Cobra there was no American Muscle in that crowd.

 

Thats what Im saying, I love Healeys as well, timeless good looks; much like a XF but even with there being one on last night for their haggareity fantisy bid you STILL couldnt hear much about the car's history or speck. Still a beautiful car that took in 65K

 

It must be the TV majic then, I was just going by the show and on TV they all look almost perfect. They must only be showing only the really good ones on the TV and leaving the other ones out.

 

I watched for about an hour last night......... they kept putting the "last 3 vehicles sold" on the bottom of the screen while they showed me another freakin' Camaro! Some of those vehicles were ones I'd rather see, Allards, 20's Cadillac's, a 40's Mercury.......countless others. Apparently they felt we as spectators to this event were only interested in ANOTHER F'ING CAMARO!!!!!!!!!




I will no longer watch Barrett-Jackson.

 

Yes it is, and no they aren't. On TV the cars tend to look pretty fabulous, but even some of the best ones need, in my opinion anyway, a solid day or more of detailing.

If any of you saw the Haggarty Fantasy Bid 1970 Hemi Cuda Convertible recreation in B5 Blue with white top over white interior, it was built by the same guy who did the black fuel injected '57 Corvette convertible that sold a few hours earlier. The 'Vette brought $107,500 before buyer's premium (ie, commission) and I can tell you the paint was basically a mess. How do I know? Because I buffed it out the night before! The owner, a super nice young guy with a ton of talent, built both cars to sell over the weekend and barely finished the 'Vette in time. In fact, the paint wasn't quite "done" and had a bunch of sanding marks in it, plenty of swirls, etc. He all but begged me to buff it out, and I got permission from B-J to do so right there on the display floor. I did not have access to a rotary buffer so I told him it was going to be far from perfect, and it was. If he had been a "regular customer" instead of a guy scrambling to get top dollar on B-J I would have told him I needed two days and $2000 to make the car perfect. As it was, I did the best I could under the circumstances, the owner was thrilled, and the car brought very good money.

But it was still in serious need of some TLC even though he got literally dozens of compliments on it.

The Cuda could have stood a solid day of buffing too.

There was a black and silver Mustang fastback, early '70s, that was darn near flawless. And the Kurt Tanner big Healeys were, as always, stunning. But even the Bugatti Veyron needed a bit of help, but then again it sold for a paltry $700,000 - easily the bargain of the weekend. The original owner, one of the founders of Google, lost roughly a million bucks on that car in 3 years.

 

But look on the bright side.......he gained a VW Microbus!


As a sidenote....... you gotta hand it to Craig Jackson on that Veyron deal. I wish I actually had the disposable cash to just up and buy a $700,000 car.

 

Mike- What you are saying is really interesting but very believable. I guess that it wouldn't be much of a show if the announcer kept saying - This one runs well but it only has a so-so paint job.