HAMMER TIME: Your Guide To The Arizona Auctions

Heading to Arizona for the January auctions? Allow us to suggest some reading material for the trip: the 2008 Collector Car Price Guide by Ron Kowalke, with more than 250,000 “proven prices.”

And once you get to Arizona, toss the book into your suitcase, because you won’t need it again. Remember? This is Arizona in January, where they make prices up as they go along. Besides, it’s sort of hard to determine the value for vehicles such as the “fire-breathing, car-crunching robot,” the Robosaurus, lot 1307 in the Barrett-Jackson auction, which appears nowhere among the proven prices in any guide.

This year, there are seven–count ‘em, seven–January auctions in the Phoenix area, offering thousands of opportunities to spend your children’s inheritance.

Certainly, the draft horse that pulls this train is the 37th annual Barrett-Jackson event, bolstered by hours of breathless coverage on Speed TV during all six days. But because of the competition, “Barrett-Jackson probably isn’t the anchor tenant of the Phoenix auctions it once was,” says Andy Reid, auction editor of Classic Motorsports magazine. “Arizona in January used to be an event ruled and facilitated by Barrett-Jackson, but they aren’t as much a factor as they once were, at least to serious customers. They have some very, very good competition.”

Reid also says the outlook for this season’s auctions, mid-level cars in particular, is a bit uncertain. Since the last major sale–Monterey in August–the subprime-mortgage crisis hit, and while those people most directly affected aren’t likely to be bidding on Ferraris, the tenor of the economy is less sure than it was.

“The best cars will be selling for what-ever they cost,” Reid says. “I don’t think there will be a problem with what we call the full-price cars.”

But clones, continuation cars, replicas and vehicles with no real history could suffer, which may mean some bargains. “I just looked at a really nice Ford Mustang, a California GT 350 clone that was very well done, and they were asking $30,000,” Reid says. “That’s a car that used to sell at Barrett-Jackson for more than twice that.”

Regardless, Reid says we should look more to some of the other auctions, less to Barrett-Jackson, for distinct and reliable market trends. “A lot of the bidders there are relatively new to the hobby and not the real movers and shakers, not people like, say, Roger Penske and Jay Leno. A typical Barrett-Jackson bidder might be a guy who owns a John Deere dealership in Iowa and has always wanted a Hemi ‘Cuda and pays what he has to for the car he wants, regardless of what it’s really worth.”

That said, Barrett-Jackson and the Speed TV coverage have introduced a lot of people to what goes on in Arizona in January, but if you know only Barrett-Jackson, you might want to expand your horizons. Listed by date, here’s a look at all seven auctions.

–International Classic Auctions Fourth Annual January in Arizona Classic, in Gilbert, southwest of Phoenix, Jan. 12-13 (www.icaauctions.com). ICA is the least-known, lowest-profile of the seven auctions, though it says it will offer 400 cars over the two-day run. The sale will be heavy on American vehicles, ranging from a 1000-hp 1996 Dodge Viper to a 1955 Ford F-100 Woody to a 1952 Studebaker Starlight. Reid says that smaller auctions shouldn’t be overlooked. “They’re the sort of places where you can stumble across a real bargain.”

–37th Annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event in Scottsdale’s WestWorld, Jan. 12-20 (www.barrett-jackson.com). Barrett-Jackson actually has cut back a little from last year’s 1239 cars to a little more than 1000 this year, which should make the proceedings a bit less frantic. Barrett-Jackson’s real claim to fame is its no-reserve policy at Scottsdale, where offering 1239 cars meant 1239 cars sold, even though it’s conceivable that a few may have been sold back to the original owners, at least through friends or agents. Craig Jackson and his team know what makes for good drama, scheduling the most interesting stuff around Speed TV’s prime-time slots. Knowing that every car that crosses the block will be sold is pretty compelling. Jackson’s continuing battles with the local government and the addition of a fall auction in Las Vegas starting this year have led some in the industry to suspect that Las Vegas eventually will eclipse Scottsdale, but not this year. Aside from the aforementioned 30-ton Robosaurus, highlights should include a Pininfarina-bodied 1963 Chevrolet Corvette built for the Paris auto show and the Italien, a gorgeous 1963 Ford Thunderbird show car. And, of course, there’s the “General Lee” 1969 Dodge Charger built for John Schneider, Bo Duke himself, with a 725-hp Hemi V8.

autoweek.com

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