An Ebb Tide in the Desert – Scottsdale Auctions

Searching for the meaning of life at an automobile auction is about as fruitful as searching for your soul mate on a nationally televised dating show. Nonetheless, after seeing all manner of cars cross the stages at the various auction houses at Scottsdale this past weekend I can’t help but think back to my teenage self watching the previous night’s episode of Black Sheep Squadron on my family’s Sony Betamax. You see, back then I was convinced that VHS was merely a passing fad and that the better picture quality I used to enjoy the adventures of Robert Conrad and his F4U Corsair would relegate the longer cassette cartridge into the dustbin of history. In hindsight, maybe I should have realized that the masses don’t often make their purchasing decisions based on sound logic and tossed my Commodore 64 into the trash when I had the chance.

While the broader press coverage of the Scottsdale auctions reviewing the results will tell you that the market shows no signs of slowing down – not hard to imagine with Hagerty Insurance reporting that sales totaled $248.6 million – certain segments are seeing the salad days of just a few years ago slowly being eaten away and therein lies my dilemma. Not surprisingly, having grown up in a household full of British sports cars, I was raised with the conviction that any car manufactured in a former Axis country was unfit to be used as transportation much less coveted as an object of desire or lust. This means that during my formative automotive years I turned a blind eye to Ferraris and Alfa Romeos, Porsches and Mercedes-Benzs. American cars were alright, but they were blunt instruments that never excited me in the way that the MG TC with its bicycle-like wheels did or filled my daydreams in the manner that a Jaguar D-Type always could.

When I bought cars they were always similar: Triumphs, Jaguars, Healeys and MGs. I assumed (mistakenly) that everyone liked the same cars that I did. Even when I got older I extolled the virtues of drum brakes, overhead valves and cast iron engine components. Well, looking at the lots that sold for big money in Arizona it’s clear that the market is cooling to postwar cars with prewar technology. Ferraris continued their inexorable march to eternal worldwide auction domination with five spots in the top ten sales at Scottsdale, led by an $8.8 million dollar sale of a 1958 250 GT California LWB. An Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 sold for just over $3 million and a 1961 Porsche 718 RS 61 Spyder sold for $2.75 million. Two Corvette L88s also crossed the million dollar threshold, leaving the 1997 McLaren F1 GTR Longtail Coupe sold at $4.8 million as the lone representative from the UK (even if it was powered by a BMW engine).

Truth be told, none of these auction results mean much to us at the wider stretch of the disposable income bell curve.  Sales of cars that competed against our LBCs in period continue to do quite nicely and that is the general direction in which the market is heading. Rather ordinary Alfa Romeo Giulia Normale Spiders now firmly occupy an area north of $100,000; so does any Porsche 356 and an increasing number of standard specification 911s (don’t even ask about what an RS will cost) and even previously unloved Mercedes-Benz SL Pagodas are pushing into the $75,000-$100,000 range.  Even 22-window and 23-window VW Buses now sell for as much as good houses in most parts of the country and Toyota FJ 40 Land Cruisers are getting real money.

What about our beloved Brits? Well, to quote Dickens; “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.”

What does that mean? It means that if you were there to sell – unless you happened to be the owner of a 100-point Jaguar – it was not the best of weeks except for the chance to enjoy the sun and all the free food and drink that you could imbibe at one of the private parties held around town. If you were there to buy, it was a pretty good week to have some available money to play with because bargains abounded everywhere for British car fans. What is hard to fathom (hence the age of foolishness part above) is that there weren’t many buyers looking for British cars since the ones that should have sold high had no one bidding for them at the same time.

A 1976 TR6 with 8,200 miles and factory hardtop is as close to a time warp car as you could get and it sold for only $32,000. A really attractive and well restored 51 MGTD sold at $20,900 while a TR3A rally tribute car with impeccable fit and finish wheezed its way to a $27,000 sale. The most unpardonable sin, however, was the 1963 SCCA One-Liter Champion Sprite driven by Donna Mae Mims selling for only $44,000.

Whatever your particular LBC interest, deals were around: an immaculate Morgan Plus Four for $30,800? It was there. An XK 140 SE OTS owned by Roy Rogers with original interior and drivetrain for $85,000? Yup, that was there too. Over restored Big Healeys that were the stars of Barrett-Jackson when they sold for $100,000+ a few years ago were lucky to hit $75,000 this week. Factory 100Ms that have been trending way up to $200,000+ are now firmly stuck well below that as two of the three failed to sell and the one that did went for only $125,000.

How important is any of this to the average guy? Not much… An awful lot… I guess it depends on your perspective and what is sitting in your garage at the present time. For me it means that it looks like I have backed Beta all over again as the market embraces the evil VHS empire embodied by high-revving Italian sports cars with 4-wheel disc brakes, aluminum blocks and 5-speed transmissions as well as upmarket versions of the original Beetle with its engine out over the rear wheels inducing butt puckering oversteer.

That’s okay, however, as I still value those old tapes just as much as I prize British sports cars. The fact that we can’t sell our TR4s and MGBs for a million dollars means that we will just have to use them pretty much as we always have – on the road. Increasing prices over the past two decades mean that we can afford to restore the basket cases without fear of being hopelessly – just somewhat – buried in restoration costs and if we do the work ourselves we might even come out ahead at the end of the day. Maybe that’s the best that we could have always hoped for. After all, British car owners have never been the most financially astute people in the world (if we were I wouldn’t have all those worthless shares of British Leyland sitting in the closet) so that means that we are all members of a special little club: owners and fans of the most undervalued cars in the world.