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:
Continue reading after the jump!
It is very important to tell everyone which lot the car is in, and about when it will go to auction so that people remember to get there to bid. Barrett went pretty fast today and they put it into the staging area early around 5:15 PM. Once it is in line it takes 45-60 minutes to get to the actual stage. Here is a picture of it in line near the Foose truck:
We waited very patiently for it to reach the stage and once we were almost there they put a Ford Pickup just in front of us. It was a Foose-built truck for WD40 and it had already gone up earlier in the day and didn’t get the money they wanted so they cut in line. Having a charity car in front of you can be a good or bad thing–it can be good because a lot of big money is on stage and in the crowd to bid on it. Unfortunately in this case it was not a good thing. They put the Ford on stage and then after went immediately to commercial so the car did not make TV. They also had the Ford on stage for over 6 minutes (average selling time is about 3 minutes). They got $200,000 for charity which is awesome but I think it made them a little behind in the schedule. The Charger came up next and went up to $50,000 very quickly. I was behind the car on stage, here is a picture of the auctioneers and a picture behind the car on stage:
We were feeling pretty good about it then they go “$50 thousand, anymore? Sold!” and before we knew it the car was gone. It was probably on stage for less than a minute (although to be honest it was very hard to gauge time because my heart was racing) and they didn’t “work” the car at all. It was a little disappointing for it to sell at $50k (my Dad wanted $55k and seeing what other things were selling for I think $65k was not out of the realm of possibility) but think the price was pretty fair for what the car was.
This was a great learning experience and I learned a lot about bringing a car like this to auction. We will have more coverage from RM and Russo and Steele tomorrow along with a commentary on what some of the cars sold for at Barrett this week.