By Rick Carey, Auction Editor
The 2013 Scottsdale auctions made no secret of the fact there is a ton of money out there, and no small portion of it is available to be employed (or parked) in high quality collector cars.
$227,967,267 changed hands for 1,897 cars in Arizona between January 15th and the 20th.
There were eleven selling sessions in five locations in a span of just six days.
That’s well over two tanks of gas just in driving among them.
The total sale amount was up 25% from last year and 44.6% from two years ago, but the car count was marginally down with 2,140 vehicles crossing the five auction blocks at Barrett-Jackson, RM, Russo and Steele, Gooding and Bonhams. The implication is clear: quality was up. Way up.
In the five auctions 31 lots brought hammer bids of $1 million or more, more than double 2012’s 15 seven-figure cars and triple 2011’s ten. Seven-figure cars totaled $68,967,500, 30.3% of the week’s total, up from 18.1% in 2012 and 10% in 2011.
Of the five auctions reported only Russo and Steele was down in total sale from 2012. Bonhams in its second year in Scottsdale posted a 125% increase in total sale, Gooding was up 44.8%, RM up 41.9% and the big daddy, Barrett-Jackson, broke through $100 million in sales, up 15.7% from last year.
All told, 88.6% of the cars offered went home with new owners, down slightly (0.6 points) from last year and a little more from 2011 (1.5 points.)
In addition to Bonhams securing its position at the Westin Kierland, Barrett-Jackson substantially expanded its Salon Collection of classics, muscle and pony cars in Saturday Prime Time. Introduced last year, Barrett-Jackson’s Salon offered even more, even better cars in 2013 and put eight of them into the seven-figure club. That from an auction that a few years ago was focused firmly on the middle market and didn’t have a single million dollar sale.
Individual auction’s stories and cars will follow.
[Source: Rick Carey; photo: Barrett-Jackson]
About Rick Carey
