How long does it take to transport more than 400 classic cars from Montreal to northwest Indiana?
“We’ve been transporting cars since December,” Auctions America car specialist Gord Duff said in late April of the John Scotti Collection that will be offered at no reserve during the annual Auburn Spring sale.
Scotti owns more than a dozen new-car dealerships in the Montreal area as well as the John Scotti Collection, which focuses on classic cars and exotics.
Duff said that Scotti has his brother run most of the dealerships so that John can focus on his Lamborghini store, and on buying and selling classics and exotics.
“But he has gotten to the point where he’s 58 years old and has too many cars, yet he wants to keep buying and selling,” Duff said.
Or as Scotti recently told the Toronto Globe and Mail in an interview, “For me, the thrill is in the hunt. I do 60,000 kilometers a year, driving to places like Goderich, Ontario, on weekends, making 5 of 10 stops along the way.”
Scotti sounds just as interested in $10,000 cars as he is in six- and even seven-figure deals.
“If I can turn a profit, I’ll buy it,” he told the Canadian newspaper, adding that the most he’s ever spent is $1 million, three years ago, to buy a 1933 Duesenberg.
The newspaper said Scotti bought his first collector car when he was 23 years old. A friend needed money and had a Ferrari 275 GTB/4 that he thought was worth $15,000. Scotti bought the car for $12,000, put an advertisement in the classifieds, asking $15,900, and almost immediately did a deal to sell the car for $15,000.
[pullquote]
He finally has decided he needs to slim down (his collection).”
— Gord Duff
[/pullquote]“So,” Scotti told the newspaper, “$3,000 in profit in three days, pretty good.”
Although, he added, “Today that car probably would sell for $3 million.”
But as Scotti says, it’s not just the profit, but the hunt.
“He has too many cars, but wants to keep buying and selling,” Duff said. “He finally has decided he needs to slim down (his collection).”
So what’s he selling?
“Everything from a 1911 Ford to a ’32 Cadillac sedan to ’50s and ’60s American convertibles, late ’60s and ’70s muscle cars, a 5,600-mile all-original ‘57 Corvette roadster, a concours-quality piece-of-jewelry Z28 Camaro, Lamborghini Diablos — 3 of them! — a Testarossa, Bently Azures…”
You can see them for yourself at Auction America’s special Scotti web catalog: http://auctionsamerica.com/events/all-lots.cfm?SaleCode=AS14&grouping=The%20John%20Scotti%20Collection&category=
