Monthly Archives: January 2014

Don Garlits and the 426

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Many a driver enjoyed racing success with the mighty 426. Don Garlits was one of the first to receive the new motor in 1964. To quote Don, “In my humble opinion, the Chrysler/Dodge 426 Hemi engine, was/is the best production engine ever manufactured by the automotive industry! No engine, to my knowledge, has the ability to produce so much raw power and still stay together. It will stand forever, as a monument to the engineering ability of the Ramchargers and their team.” Read more on Garlits take on the elephant motor at Street Legal TV.

Swamp-Rat-VIII

New Wrangler – IFS and a Diesel?

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Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has confirmed that the new Wrangler will be lighter with a new updated architecture. Purists fear this means no more live front axle. Sales are extremely strong so if it were to adopt an independent front suspension, the reasoning may be to increase Chrysler’s corporate average fuel economy standard. Possibly for the same reason, there are rumors of a diesel option. We’ll know for sure at the unveiling in approx. ten weeks. Read more at Car Buzz.

Jeep-Wrangler

 

The Other Auctions: RM and Gooding

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Yesterday we decided to hit the other Arizona auctions that do not have a lot of Mopar stuff but still have some interesting cars. RM is a very high end auction with mostly European cars, Ferrari’s and older cars. Gooding has a nice mix of stuff as well and is similar to RM but the cars are not as high end. Gooding had an “as found” theme going on with three cars still covered in dust and grime going up for auction.

These cars were from RM and includes a couple of Imperials, a Hemi powered Facel Vega, and a Chrysler 300B. More pics after the jump!

RM-Auctions-Facel-Vega

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Selling a car at Barrett Jackson: Wrap Up

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We have been writing about the process of bringing and selling a car at Barrett Jackson for the last week and today was the day it went up for sale. We got to the auction very early today to make sure to get it cleaned up and ready to go. We had a sign out front and a flier to give out.  Here is what they looked like:

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1970-Dodge-Charger-Barrett-Flyer

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Day 1 at Barrett-Jackson

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Today was the first day of cars going across the block at Barrett Jackson and it was a very fun and exciting day. They have an all new facility this year with over 1,000,000 square feet of space!  It is amazing how big this place it and they are selling over 1,400 cars from Tuesday to Sunday. Here are a couple of cars that stood out to us, we will post many more later this week with more info on what we thought of them.  Here are a few teaser shots, will go more in depth on these later. More pics after the jump!

1967-Plymouth-Barracuda-Barrett-Jackson

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Selling a car at Barrett Jackson: Transporting the Car to Auction and What to Do When You Get There

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The car needed to go from Seattle, Washington to Scottsdale, Arizona and a lot of options are available for transportation. The hard part is a ton of cars are heading to Arizona for this week (Barrett is selling 1,400 cars themselves which doesn’t include all of the cars at Russo and Steele, RM, Gooding, Silver, etc) so it makes transportation very expensive.  You also have to send the car in an enclosed trailer. With the bad January weather across the country transporting it in an open hauler is just a bad idea especially after spending all the time detailing and cleaning up the vehicle. Since I was hoping to go to Barrett Jackson and the Arizona auctions anyways I decided to just transport the car down myself (with the added bonus of covering the auctions for Mopar Blog!).

This simplified getting the car down there greatly by not having to rely upon somebody else to get the car down there at a certain point. We decided to try to get the car to Scottsdale by Jan covering them for Mopar Blog!).

This simplified getting the car down there greatly by not having to rely upon somebody else to get the car down there at a certain point. We decided to try to get the car to Scottsdale by January 11th so I left Olympia, Washington on the 9th and drove the 24 hours to Scottsdale and got there the morning of the 11th. I was towing it down with my 1998 Dodge Ram Diesel and lost 5th gear in the transmission somewhere in Oregon. Without overdrive I couldn’t go over 60 MPH after this and it was a VERY long trip!

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1970-Dodge-Charger-RT-Barrett-Jackson

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Selling a car at Barrett Jackson: Registering the Car and Prepping it for Auction

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When a person decides to sell a car at Barrett Jackson you need to fill out the entry form with a description of the car and pictures.  Barrett then decides whether they will accept the car.  Once they decide to accept the car then they tell you which day they slot you in and you decide whether you are OK with running it that day.  Barrett told my Dad they wanted to run the car on Wednesday night January 15th between 7 and 8 PM and he decided to go for it.

After confirming with Barrett Jackson the next step was to get the car ready for auction.  As you can see in the picture it is a very nicely restored car so all he had to do was get it professionally detailed.  You also have to come up with a good description for the auction catalog and to put on a car at the auction itself.

The description should accurately describe the car but keep it brief.  For example if the engine is not #’s matching you do not want to mention that.  Let the buyer ask about that.  Also a lot of times bidders won’t have even seen the car before it goes on the block and they bid on it anyways.  You don’t want them to read “not numbers matching” when going over the block.

Our next post will be about transportation to the auction and prepping the car once there.

1970-Dodge-Charger-RT-Barrett-Jackson-1

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