classic car auctions

[mopar1]

   Has anyone here ever enter a car into a classic auction. eg. r/m , barrett jackson?
                                     If so, what was the experince like? and was it succesful?

[69hemi]

To answer your question, yes & no. I have been at auctions with friends selling their cars and buying new ones but I chose not to sell my Charger that way.  When it came time to put My Hemi up for sale I looked at all the options.  Craig Jackson's stockbroker is a guy I went to school with and he brought up the car in a conversation with Craig.  Craig told him he would love to have the car and would get it in a prime time spot.  While this all sounded good I was still left to abide by his method of a No Reserve auction.

When you take a car through one of the auction houses at most you can choose reserve or no reserve for you price.  Reserve means that you will sell your car for anything over that set reserve number.  You are not obligated to sell it for any less.  No reserve means just that, no pre set minimum price that the car can not sell below.  If you have fair expectations of what the car will bring and you get at least two bidders no reserve can be an okay thing.  However if you only get one guy who wants your car it turns from an auction to a name your price game and you may get tens of thousands less for your car than you thought.  I have seen many people buy back their cars and having to pay commission on their own vehicles just to avoid the loss of an unresponsive auction.

There is also the issues of costs associated with an auction.  I have listed some below.

$First you need to get the car to the registered.  B/J only took 1 out of 4 entries that last year. 

$Next you need to register the car with the auction.

$Next you need to get the car to the location which might involve a transport company for shipping

$Then there is the cost of travel for someone to be there to tell details of the car to the potential bidders for at least 2-4 day previous to the auction time.

$The when you car goes over the block and hopefully you get what you were looking for you have to pay the sellers percentage of usually 4%-10%

This stuff adds up fast .  There are also inspection companies that are at the auctions and while most serious bidders will pay for one on a car they want the trend seems to be the sellers providing them as information sheets on their cars.

So once you add up all the potential costs, liabilities and the uncertainty of what you car will actually bring you might want to take a look at a broker instead.  A broker for classic cars functions like a Realtor in they list you car on many on line sites as well as print media ads for it.  They all have their lists of people looking for cars as well as other brokers they network with searching for buyers.  They Field all the calls on the car all the time instead of having tire kickers bothering you at work or late at nights.  At the time of the sale they have all the paperwork done from bill of sale to the title transfer.  There is also a sense of security from buying from a reputable classic car dealer than just from an individual as they have a business history and reputation that they want to uphold.

Sorry to be so windy but having just gone through this with the Hemi car I though I would share my experience and decisions of the subject.

[whitehatspecial]

You also have to send them the title of the car well ahead of time (6 months), so you cannot sell the car on your own once you agree to have them auction it.

[Ghoste]

At RM you are not required to turn over the title until you bring the car to the auction.