(Bloomberg) — A rising tide lifts all ships. That was the message to collectors after the annual classic car auctions Jan. 22-30 in Scottsdale, Ariz., where each year, Barrett-Jackson, Bonhams, Gooding & Co., RM Sotheby’s, and Worldwide Auctioneers auction off thousands of the world’s classic and collectable cars in white tents and hotel convention centers under the desert sun.
Total sales across the five auction houses hit $266.7 million, up 22% over 2020, despite a lower number of cars actually sold. That’s according to accounting by Hagerty Automotive Intelligence, a company that insures and values classic and collectable cars. The sum bested Hagerty’s forecast of $211 million and achieved the second-highest-ever gross for the auction week, after a $307.3 million peak in 2016. (Sales totals were compared to 2020, rather than 2021, because last January the novel coronavirus pandemic prevented a full auction schedule in Arizona.)
“By every metric, this year’s selling spree in Arizona was better than 12 months ago—and even the last pre-pandemic, ‘normal’ year of 2020,” British car collector, broker, and analyst Simon Kidson wrote in the K500 Index report.
The auctions were seen as a test of whether the traditional live events would still have selling power after a couple of years in which online auction houses like BringATrailer strongly outperformed in-person results. In 2021, BAT single-handedly exceeded the sums brought in by all live auctions in the U.S. combined, bringing in a whopping $829 million. The online houses have also drained significantly the number of cars offered live throughout the year, according to Hagerty, auction insiders, and to the heads of auction houses themselves.
“We do a lot less volume than the online auctions do, and absolutely, a lot of the cars have gone to online auctions,” says Jakob Greisen, head of Bonhams U.S. Motoring Department.
In Kissimmee, Fla., great results were also posted from in-person sales. Mecum’s separate live auction there, held Jan. 6–16, sold $213 million worth of vehicles, compared to $88 million in 2020.
“The growth of online auctions has brought enthusiast vehicles to more people than ever,” John Wiley, the manager of valuation analytics for Hagerty, says. “No longer passively watching auctions on TV, they can bid from home easier than ever now. Total sales at live auctions benefitted from [that] widespread appreciation.” Online sales totals have doubled annually since 2016, according to Hagerty.
All told in Arizona, 2,107 out of 2,135 lots sold, for a 99% sell-through rate at the five auction houses. The average sale price of a vehicle sold was $126,556 in 2022, up significantly over the average sale price of $95,152 in 2020. The sell-through rate of the 2020 Arizona auctions was 97%—2,288 out of 2,352 vehicles sold.
RM Sotheby’s posted the top-seller for the weekend: a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Aluminum Gullwing Coupe that sold for $6.8 million, including buyer’s premiums. RM Sotheby’s also posted the third- and fourth-most-prized vehicles sold, a 1931 Duesenberg Model J Derham Tourster that sold for $3.4 million and a 1964 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster that went for $2.3 million. The second-most-expensive vehicle sold in the week was a 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Coupe, which Barrett-Jackson sold for charity for $3.7 million.
Elsewhere, a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner Superbird Hemi sold for a record-setting $990,000 at the Barrett-Jackson auction, while Bonham’s 1949 Buick Roadmaster Convertible, featured in the movie Rain Man, sold for $335,000, obliterating its estimated price of $150,000 to $250,000. (Barrett-Jackson reported that Scottsdale returned the highest sales numbers of any single event in the company’s 50-year history.) In a sign of the times, Gooding & Co. sold a Porsche 996 Turbo S Cabriolet for a near-record $126,500, a car that would ordinarily inspire Porsche purists to turn up their noses due to its soft-top look and engineering.
That car indicates a loosening of what is acceptable for traditional collectors to buy, Wiley says. These days, people are more likely to buy something they want to drive rather than let a vehicle appreciate by keeping its mileage low. “Since the pandemic began, people have prioritized fun-to-drive vehicles over poised-to-appreciate ones,” he says.
RM Sotheby’s took the prize for the most creative packaging of a collectable car with the on-trend mood of the moment. Its 1988 Cizeta-Moroder V16T is a prototype and show car, chassis 001, owned throughout by the prolific Italian musician and composer Giorgio Moroder.
Executives at RM Sotheby’s paired the 16-cylinder car, which underwent a full mechanical restoration by the irascible Porsche guru Bruce Canepa, with a single, unique NFT that includes a four-track Moroder EP exclusive to the car; a 3D artistic rendering of the car; a 3D scan of the car; and digitized provenance documentation. The whole thing, NFT and all, sold for $1.36 million.
These days, it seems, buyers just want to have fun.
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