Saturday, February 14, 2009

Barrett-Jackson ’09 (Con’t)


After having spent an considerable amount of time perusing the upcoming vehicles for sale to the highest bidder, during the second Preview day (Monday) I was most curious to see the results via the Telescreen, and thus decided to drop-in both Friday & Saturday nights for extended viewing periods. (3.5+ Hours each night) Thus here’s what I jotted down as SPEED gave us an extra 30mins of coverage both nights, with the emphasis upon “Super Saturday” when all of the Really-really-Really Big sales occur, hence my notes are primarily from Saturday night...

Super Saturday’s Top 5 Sellers
No. Vehicle Price
1. 1929 Ford Tri-Motor Aeroplane $1.1m
2. 1955 Ford Thunderbird $600,000
3. 1970 Dodge Superbird $501,000
4. 2006 #24 Chevrolet racecar $500,000
5. 1996 Buick Blackhawk $475,000

NOTE:
The top two vehicles were sold to Arizona House builder Magnate Ron Pratt, while the ’70 Superbird was a re-creation built off of a Dodge Satellite body and finished in Richard Petty blue; selling for the extra $1k in order to beat Jeffery “Pretty Boy’s” Gordon’s race car, as both were sold for charity. The Dodge also garnered an additional $175,000 large in additional donations...


Friday; Jan. 16, 2009
My very loosely scribbled notes start off with one of my personal favourites, a 1969 BOSS 302 Mustang; Lot #979 which fell for a hammer price of $97,000. Then a 1959 Corvette “Fuelie;” (Fuel Injected) Lot #1019 was sold for a staggering $200,000!

Saturday; Jan. 17, 2009
Lot #1248, a beautifully restored Brittany Blue 1968 Shelby GT500KR was hammered away for the sum of $150,000, while Lot #1251, a 1929 Rolls Royce paled in comparison, rolling off stage for the tune of $87k,

Then there was the Dodge Superbird re-creation in “Petty Blue” and driven onstage by “The King” (Richard Petty) no less… And this was the first of several auctions which began to piss me off! As they kept stopping lead auctioneer Spanky in order to stall for time to stroke the bid higher… As now hold on Spanky, we’re even gonna throw in a Richard Petty “signature” hat; Blah-Blah-Blah! While Ron Pratt was quick to throw in an extra $100k large, as this rusted out ’70 Dodge Satellite was transformed into the killer Superbird stuffed with Ray Evernham power train and body massaged by Year One, finally rolling off stage for the amazing price of $501,000…

Next, Ron Pratt took center stage by laying down a staggering sum of $600,000 to obtain a very unique “Baby Bird.” As the Ford Thunderbird he won was the very first production 1955 T-Bird with serial #005. (The very first production Thunderbird created in late 1954)

A very small sampling of racing celebs in the house included “The R “N R Indy Car Bros.” Ryan “The Dude” Hunter-Reay and Ryan Dalziel; Err, better make that Sports Car drivers, since both are racing in the Daytona 24hrs… Hmm? Was Hunter-Reay hoping to find an Indy Car ride at the show, or simply commiserating with Buddy “Hot Rod” Rice over their potential Indy Car seats going up in smoke?

Also spotted were Gas Rhonda and John Force, as the two NHRA pilots actually raced each other for the honors of driving a Ford Mustang Comp Car on stage.

Then again, perhaps “The Dude” was checkin’ out Lot #1302, a late 1980’s Corvette, which had actually been built as a rolling test lab/prototype, featuring a built-in roll cage for high speed testing at the GM Proving Grounds, as the 1989 Corvette ZR1 “Snake skinner II” fetched a hammer price of $67,000.

A most interesting show car was up next, as Lot #1303 featured the 1996 Buick Blackhawk specifically created by GM to recognize Buick’s Centennial in 2003. And the Blackhawk went for big money, as the #5 top seller of the show at a whopping $475k! Has anybody driven a Buick lately?

Lot #1304 was a most unique automobile, as it was a rare 1947 Allard Hill Climb Special, which was the ’09 Barrett-Jackson auction catalog’s cover car, (Which will only set you back a mere $15...) Adding provenance to this eclectic vehicle was the fact that it was built specifically for Sidney Allard himself and featured “Dually” style rear wheels in order to gain extra traction, along with an Austrian built air cooled V-8. The Allard netted $185,000.

Then next up was a true modern Super car… A true beast, as this 2005 Saleen S7 was the only street (legal) car version of 15 racecars built along with 50 turbos for Homologation and this beast was a Narly 1,000bhp twin turbocharged version of the plain Jane “stock” 560bhp S7! This freakish Saleen boasts a 0-60mph time of 2.5 seconds along with a top speed of 250mph… Lot #1305 hammered away for $375,000.

And the hits just kept on rollin’ as Lot #1306.2 featured a ’67 Plymouth Barracuda, selling for charity and included lunch with some cat named Indiana Jones. (Harrison Ford)

And then the Barrett-Jackson show stopper, Lot #1307 wasn’t an automobile, nor in the building… As the pristine 1929 Ford Tri-motor Aeroplane replete with Pearl Harbor bullet holed parts was sold for $1.1m to you guessed it! Ron Pratt… And I thought the Housing bubble had burst?

Lot #1316 was another unique item, as GM was hoping to cause a stir by selling the number one production 2010 Camaro with the caveat of the winning bidder getting to deck out the car however they wished from the GM catalog. So it shouldn’t be surprising that “Mega” GM dealer Rick Hendrick won the bid with a price of $360,000 large.

Continuing with the re-creation/clone theme, Lot #1317 was a Shelby Eleanor Mustang, but not just any ‘Ol Eleanor ‘Stang. Nope this was 1 of 3 remaining Automatic Eleanor’s from the actual movie Gone in 60 Seconds, while it’s believed that a fleet of 11 Eleanor clones were produced for the movie. The ’67 Mustang Fastback sold for $97k.

Lot #1319 was the first 1969 BOSS 429 that I managed to notice crossing the block. As the SPEED talking heads duly noted, this BOSSes price was visibly lower then previous years, netting a paltry $190k.

Then for something different, a ’94 Porsche 911 Speedster entered the building. (Lot #1321) But this Porsche happened to formerly belong to someone by the name of Seinfeld, as in Jerry Seinfeld, who’s reportedly a hardcore Porsche-aphyle… And not content with the stock motor had Andial install a European RS-spec 911 lump in it. Also apparently Jerry didn’t have much time to drive his Porsche’s as the Speedster’s odometer noted only 9,800 miles upon it, as the ex-Seinfeld Porsche was sold for $98,000.

And it’s always funny how Barrett-Jackson gets the bulk of attention, with its massive 40hrs of live SPEED coverage, which portrays it as the ONLY auction going on... While there were three other auction companies in town: Russo & Steele, RN Auctions and Gooding & Company, with the latter selling two pristine exoticar’s for a staggering sum of $8.5 million...

’09 Gooding & Company Auction notes