While the 1967 Ferrari NART Spyder captured the spotlight
at last weekend's classic car auctions around Pebble Beach, it was only
the tip of a $301 million bazaar of selling over the weekend — a 13.5
percent increase from last year's five auto auctions, according to Hagerty's Insurance.
Many high-end collector cars zoomed past their estimates and a few set
new brand records of their own, such as the McLaren F1 at Gooding &
Co. which sold for $8.47 million, and the 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC
Atalante at $8.75 million.
With the world's wealthy looking for investment opportunities, the
large auto auction houses have turned their sales into ready-for-TV
entertainment, and the environment only adds to the spectacle of
high-end transactions. It wasn't just sports cars that turned heads; one
of the most talked-about cars of the weekend was Gooding's offer of a
1915 Creators Model C Popcorn Wagon, the kind that used to park outside
movie theatres before operators realized the money-making potential of a
concession stand. As one of only three such surviving models, Gooding
had set the pre-auction estimate between $200,000 and $275,000. Final price: $374,000.
Collector cars have gone through
bubbles before, most recently in 2008-09, when prices for American
muscle cars went ballistic before falling back, and the run-up in recent
years has raised similar concerns. But as the experts who joined us for
the Yahoo! Autos live show at Pebble Beach on Sunday explain, $300 million of classic cars selling in a single weekend may be the new normal.
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