by Mike Gulett –
When buying a collector car who do you trust? Do you trust the auction company? Some auction companies are on television providing lucrative entertainment while they make more money selling cars.
Do you trust the collector car dealer?
Do you trust the seller?
When you buy through an auction company or a dealer you likely will not meet the seller or even know the identity of the seller. If you buy directly from the seller at least you have an opportunity to ask questions from someone who has owned the car and driven it and lived with it for a while. You also get a chance to inspect the car and take it for a test drive or have an inspector you hire do so on your behalf. You may not be able to do this if the car is at an auction but you can do a full inspection if the car is with a dealer or if you buy directly from the owner.
As we approach the Monterey Car Week auctions – where the most important collector car auctions of the year will be held that set the trends for the next year – these are questions that I think about. If any of you are looking to buy a collector car anytime soon I am sure you think about this as well.
I read many of the auction companies car descriptions and look at the photos. I also read many collector car dealer web sites where I find interesting cars and interesting descriptions sometimes. I always find a car or two that I would love to own but I cannot buy all that I want.
There are several on-line classic car auctions. I only have experience with Bring a Trailer where I have sold two cars in the last few years. So, my comments here are limited to BaT.
Bring a Trailer strives to make their listings as transparent as possible by having the seller disclose all flaws with their vehicle. There are typically around 200 photos and the final text of the listing is written by a BaT representative. The standard listing is live for 7 days so depending on where the vehicle is located it may be difficult to complete an in person inspection before the auction ends. So, most of the vehicles are sold without an inspection.
Is it possible that there might be shill bidders raising the price at on-line auctions? Since most readers and bidders use screen names and thus are not known a fake bidder could slip in and make strategic bids that raise the final price.
Buying any collector car has some risk because of the age and/or the complexity of the particular vehicle. Steps that we take before the purchase may be able to reduce the risk. It can be wise to have a budget for post purchase repairs, just in case.
Good luck to you all with your collector car search – be careful out there and have fun.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
Race cars are the most vulnerable to faking . I remember reading of one team that took cars with identical serial numbers hiding the spare in the trailer. If one was smashed in practice, they transported it off sit and a few days later came up with supposedly the same car rebuilt (early 300SL team racing in US), Then you wonder was the original frame on the wrecked one rebuilt and what SN was that sold under? Of course the other way around could occur, I remember a Ferrari, maybe a 250LM that was smashed and some European racing put a Porsche body on it
and had to hack off part of the Ferrari frame to make it fit. I think it was raced as a Por-Fer. But whoever bought it as a car that looked sloppily assembled got a real 250LM now worth millions. Then there’s the story about the late Hans Tenner driving Ferraris from Italy to Switzerland and stopping in some tunnel to change SN plates. and how many entrepreneurs have come up with the remains of James Dean’s 550 spyder which was purportedly stolen while being transported by train around the US. for lectures on auto safety.
Mike,
There is a wonderful car magazine put out monthly by Keith Martin, called “Sports Car Market”. Besides all the latest trends and prices for collectible sports cars and other collectible cars, each month they publish a legal column with very detailed horror stories of collectible car purchases that went very, very wrong. As an aside, they also had the most detailed coverage of the Rudi Klein Collection auction by Sotheby’s in South Los Angeles of any magazine out there.
Glenn in Brooklyn, NY.
Glenn,
I have been a subscriber of SCM for years and I like the legal column very much.