Are classic car buyers and their bank accounts exhausted after the auction action on the Monterey Peninsula? It won’t take long to find out, because the torrent of cars across the block doesn’t dissipate anytime soon.
The Labor Day weekend is no holiday for classic car auction houses. RM’s Auctions America stages its biggest annual event, its Fall Auburn sale, August 27-31 at Auburn Auction Park in northeastern Indiana.
The sale is held during the annual Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Festival, and it’s not the only auction action in town as Worldwide Auctioneers holds its annual hometown event August 30 in the historic Cord L29 assembly plant right behind the ACD Museum.
Meanwhile, Silver Auctions will be at Sun Valley, Idaho, for a sale August 30-31 in conjunction with that community’s Wagon Days festivities.
In early September, the sales spotlight shifts across the Atlantic Ocean in early September with Silverstone Auctions Salon Prive sale on the 4th, Bonhams auction at Beaulieu on the 6th and RM’s annual London auction on the 8th. And just a few days later, Bonhams does its annual auction at the Goodwood Revival (the 9th through the 11th). Oh, and a few days earlier — on August 30 — Historics at Brooklands will stage its largest auction yet with 161 cars crossing the block.
However, don’t forget that Mecum Auctions is at Dallas with a thousand cars from September 3-6 and then goes to suburban Chicago for another thousand-vehicle sale September 9-11.
Also in September, Silverstone, a serious if relatively new player in Europe, has its Autumn auction, Silver Auctions is in Portland, and Barrett-Jackson and Russo and Steele go head-to-head in Las Vegas.
Ferraris were all the rage on the Monterey Peninsula, but traditional classics get to stage a comeback in early October at Bonhams Preservation sale at the Simeone museum and at RM’s annual auction at Hershey.
Here are some highlights of the Labor Day and early September sales:
In addition to its usual assortment of hundreds of collector cars, Auctions America’s Fall Auburn sale will feature some 80 cars from one private collection and 20 from the Disiere Collection, assembled over the past 20 years by Dallas insurance executive David Disiere, whose collection includes several Ford concept cars; the Maggio Mascot and Memorabilia Collection; the MacPhail Collection of classic auto parts, which includes a flock of parts for Duesenbergs; more than three dozen vintage tractors, circa 1930s through the 1950s, from a single collection; as well as the Fred Smith collection of automotive fine art and the 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost used on the Boardwalk Empire television series.
Among the “usual assemblage” Auctions America’s Fall Auburn sale comprises more than one thousand cars, including a 2006 Ford GT Heritage Edition, an F-code 1957 Ford Thunderbird, a 1970 Pontiac GTO Judge, a 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429, a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible, a 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, and a 1934 Packard Twelve Convertible Victoria.
Since this is the A-C-D Festival weekend, the auction also features cars from the local automakers, including a 1937 Cord 812 supercharged convertible, a 1935 Auburn 851 supercharged speedster and a 1935 Duesenberg Model SJ dual cowl phaeton with body by LaGrande.
“Auburn has always been the place where people bring their cars home to sell them,” said Auctions America car specialist Megan Boyd.
This will be the 58th annual A-C-D Festival. It includes a downtown Auburn cruise-in that starts at 1 p.m. Friday and runs well into the night, the ACD Club car show on Saturday and the A-C-D Parade of Classics on Saturday afternoon, as well as many other events.
Worthy of special mention at Auction America’s sale is a 1964 Chevrolet Impala convertible that will be auctioned to benefit the honor Flight of Northeast Indiana. The car is donated by Jerry Rathburn, a Vietnam era veteran and founder of Rathburn Tool and Manufacturing, who hopes the car raises enough money to fly 70 Northeast Indiana veterans, especially aging WWII veterans, to Washington, D.C., to visit the various memorials.
The activity at Auburn Auction Park includes more than the auction, which is conducted on two side-by-side blocks. It also includes a swap meet, car sales corral, celebrity appearances and this year ATV and dirt bike exhibitions, as well as helicopter and monster truck rides.
The idea, said Boyd, is to keep the entire family involved and entertained.
Worldwide’s Auburn sale includes a Figonii et Falaschi-designed 1938 Talbot-Lago T-23 sport cabriolet, 1949 Mercury and 1952 Buick woodie wagons, a 1949 Chrysler Town & Country convertible, a 1938 Cadillac V16 limousine, a 1929 Cord L-29 town car, various versions of Ford Models T and A, a 1955 Hudson Italia, a pair of Mercedes-Benz 190SL roadsters, a 1969 Shelby GT500 convertible, and 18 Packards, including a 1929 645 roadster, 1934 Twelve 1108 convertible, 1938 1604 Super Eight coupe, a 1942 U.S. Army staff car, a 1947 Clipper taxi, a 1953 Henney ambulance and a 1958 hardtop coupe.
Featured lots of Mecum’s Dallas sale include the first 1967 Chevrolet Camaro delivered to the Yenko Chevrolet dealership, a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette convertible that earned Bloomington Gold Benchmark honors, a 1969 Corvette L88 convertible ordered new by racer Tony DeLorenzo, and a 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda.
Featured lots for Mecum’s Chicago sale include a 1974 Chevrolet Camaro that was Nickey Chevrolet’s last Stage III conversion, the first 2010 Nickey Camaro Stage II SE offered for public sale, a 1967 COPO Corvette convertible with Bloomington Gold Survivor status, and a 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A originally sold by Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge dealership.
The star car for RM’s London auction, held in conjunction with the Concours d’Elegance at Hampton Court Palace, is a 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Competitionze ‘Tour de France’ and the eighth of the nine such cars built. Pre-auction estimate is $7 million to $9 million.
Also on the docket are a 1964 Shelby 289 Competition Cobra, a 1937 Bugatti Type 57C Stelvio, and a dozen Ferraris from a single collection, among them an alloy-bodied 1966 275 GTB.
However, the highlight of the sale could be the very first lot, a CIAM-NASA Hypersonic Flying Laboratory “Kohlod,” basically a rocket capable of traveling at nearly 5,000 miles per hour, though presented for sale as “a static technical aerospace artifact.”
Silverstone’s Salon Prive sale features cars from The “Stradale” Collection while Bonhams auction at England’s National Motor Museum includes the estate sale of a collection of vintage motorcycles and a bevy of barn- or garage-found automobiles that are candidates for restoration or preservation.
The featured lot for Bonhams Goodwood Revival auction is the 1938 Lagonda LG45R Rapide sports-racing two-seater known as “Epe 97” and with racing history both before and after World War II.
