The Super Bowl of Auctions Barrett-Jackson vs Mecum January 2014
By Rick Tavel© November17, 2013 All Rights Reserved
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| Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale 2013 (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) |
As the football season is winding down and college teams are
battling for prestigious bowl invitations and the NFL teams are fighting for a
spot in Super bowl XLVIII, as automobile enthusiasts we get the added thrill of
our own “super bowl”, better known as the January collector car auctions and
this year is shaping up to be one of the most exciting extravaganzas in recent
memory, especially if you are a Corvette fan.
As expected the battle for the best consignments, particularly for
outstanding
Corvettes, is taking place
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| Mecum Kissimmee 2013 (Photo: Mecum) |
on opposite sides of the country between the two
giants of collector cars, Mecum® and Barrett-Jackson®. As in
prior years both auction companies will pull out all the stops to present their
spectacular display of exceptional collector cars, several of which are
significant, important parts of automobile history. As in the past, Corvettes will be key players
contributing to the success of the January auction season. Both Mecum® and Barrett-Jackson® will be
auctioning hundreds of Corvettes and both are featuring historically important
Corvettes as their “headline” cars of the auction.
Barrett-Jackson® kicks off their January spectacular in a
brand new auction facility, still located at West World in Scottsdale, Arizona,
January 12th through the 19th. Once again they will offer their Salon
collection, a special group of the most important and historically significant
cars consigned and which make up the centerpiece of their Scottsdale event. Last year Barrett-Jackson designated 53 cars
as a part of their Salon collection and their combined sales exceeded
$29M. This year the Salon collection, which
consists of pre war classics, exotics, sports cars, muscle cars and of course
Corvettes, will cross the block on Saturday, January 18th, the day
the very best cars of the eight day event are scheduled to sell.
Dana Mecum will kick off the largest of his twelve annual collector
car auctions 2100 miles to the east in Kissimmee, Florida, January 17th
through the 26th, , just as Barrett-Jackson® will be wrapping up
their event in the west. And while
neither company’s consignments are finalized at this point, both already have a
sizeable and impressive offering of Corvettes consigned. Mecum, which has offered an amazing array of
Corvettes at each of his twelve major automobile auctions during 2013, is
offering some important historically significant Corvettes as the highlight of
the ten-day, 3000 car event. Mecum will
be offering two Corvette collections: thirteen Corvettes from the Roger Judski
Collection and eight Callaway Corvettes, including the renowned “Sledgehammer”
C4 and a Callaway powered Corvette speed boat from Richard Berry’s collection
will help anchor the hundreds of other Corvettes which will cross the block.
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| Record Setting 1967 L88 $3.2M (Photo: Mecum) |
Throughout 2014, Corvettes auction prices have been red hot
and outpaced the collector car market overall.
In September a 1967 L88 Marlboro Maroon convertible from the prestigious
Buddy Herin collection set a world’s record price for a Corvette at auction
selling for $3.2M ($3.5M including fees) in Mecum’s Dallas auction. Though prices have been strong for most
restored Corvettes, the hottest segment of the Corvette market was undoubtedly
first, second and third generation documented cars in impeccable condition with
high horsepower engines. Blue chip
Corvettes that also had a documented racing heritage saw prices that often
topped a million dollars. The three
hottest categories of Corvettes during 2013 were: (1) all Corvettes with
documented racing heritage, especially 1963 Z06s, 1967 through 1969 L88s, and
1970 ZR1s and 1971 ZR1s and ZR2s (2) early
generation historically important Corvettes with rare or unique production
options, such as big brake, big tank or “airbox” cars and (3) numbers matching, big
block, high horsepower C2’s and C3”s.
Restored or survivor, numbers matching, second generation cars in
exceptional condition and those which received NCRS or Bloomington Gold awards were
highly sought, especially those with big blocks and typically brought in excess
of $100K while small blocks sold in excess of $50K. It will be these categories that
Barrett-Jackson® and Mecum® will feature in their 2014 auction previews and
schedule for the best auction days.
Though consignments will still be open through December, both
Barrett-Jackson® and Mecum® already have several important Corvettes already
consigned to the January events. Here is an abbreviated look at some of the
most important.
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| "Asteroid" by George Barris (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) |
Last year Barrett-Jackson® offered over 125 Corvettes as a
part of the 1200 cars auctioned during their January event and by the time
consignments close for 2014 that number will likely be exceeded. As is customary for Craig Jackson’s January
extravaganza, expect Corvettes representative of every segment of the collector
hobby, from celebrity owned or
customized, to state of the art restomods, as well as a full assortment of
impeccably restored Corvettes from every generation. One of the feature cars will be “King of the
Kustomizers,” George Barris’s famous
“Astroid” 1963 Corvette coupe. The
dazzling metallic copper Corvette was fully restored earlier this year and is
jointly owned by Lance Miller of Corvettes
at Carlisle® fame and Randy Koettel owner of Desert Autosport® . As Barris customized creations go, the
Corvette would be considered “tame” and was built for the successful business
entrepreneur and offshore powerboat champion Bob Nordskog to serve as a street
car, a race car, and show car.
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| The Rebel (Photo:Barrett-Jackson Bill Erdman) |
Throughout the sixty years of Corvette history there are
relatively few cars with the background, impressive credentials and
significance of the renowned #57 1969 L88 racecar known as “Rebel” and Barrett-Jackson®
will be offering it on Saturday, January 18th. The highly successful #57 Corvette was
painted in a striking but controversial rebel flag motif, in response to arch-competitor
Don Greenwood’s cars which were painted in an American flag design. The “Rebel,” raced against other legendary
Corvettes like the "winningest Corvette in history”, the Owens-Corning #12
Corvette, which was sold at Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale in 2013 for $1M. The “Rebel” won four of five IMSA events in
1971 and captured the first IMSA Championship.
During IMSA’s finale race at Daytona, Bob Johnson and Don Yenko drove
the #57 Corvette to the race win and GTO championship and in the process Yenko
broke the class speed record on a tri oval at 201.4 MPH. The following year at the 1972 12 Hours of
Sebring, the Rebel qualified as the 13th fastest car, but Dave Heinz passed the pole position Corvette
(the ex Owens-Corning #12) on the first lap and led the GT class for the entire
12 hours, finishing 4th overall and 1st in GT. It was a record that stood until
Pratt & Miller’s 2003 results.
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| Magnificent 1967 L88 Coupe Duntov Mark of Excellence Award Winner (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) |
The third star and perhaps the most precious jewel of the
Barrett-Jackson® Corvette offerings is a 1967 L88 coupe which has a history of
drag racing on Detroit’s drag strips and restored almost fifteen years ago by
the famous Nabers Brothers Corvette restorers of Houston. Only twenty 1967 L88 Corvettes were ever
produced and this is the only red on red one.
In addition to being inducted into the Bloomington Gold Hall of Fame and
appearing in the Bloomington Gold Special Collection, it has also received an
NCRS Top Flight Award and Performance Verification, and is the only L88 on
record to have achieved the coveted Duntov Mark of Excellence. Ray Sinor,
well-known, recently-retired National Corvette Restorers Society national
judging chairman and one of the experts Barrett-Jackson uses for Corvette
consultations, believes this may be the finest of the nineteen 1967 L88’s known
to exist.
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| Legendary L88 engine (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) |
In addition to these rare and award-winning cars you can expect several more outstanding
Corvettes, like the all original survivor 1953 Corvette once owned by Alan
Jackson, or the fully restored red on red 1956 convertible with a 283/265HP
dual quad engine with a Duntov cam.
There is also a 1961 convertible that has received four Top Flight
awards, the Performance Verification Award and the Duntov Award of
Excellence.
If you prefer second
generation Corvettes you can choose from several, like the 1967 Marina Blue,
fully optioned convertible with the factory original 427 engine and
transmission. Or perhaps you’d like to
pick up the frame-off restored 1967 Lyndale blue coupe with a teal interior
that has received Bloomington Gold, NCRS
Top Flight, Gold Spinner and Triple Crown Awards. There is also a yellow/black 1966 427/425
award winning coupe that has original maintenance records. The list of great second generation Corvettes
goes on and on.
Third generation Corvettes are also well represented
throughout the auction. One of the
rarest of all C3’s is the ZR2 and on Saturday afternoon, January 18, a Brands
Hatch Green 1971 LS6 ZR2 will be auctioned.
In addition to the high performance 425 HP, 454 cubic inch engine the
award winning C3 also has the M22 “rock crusher” 4 speed, the J56 power dual
pinned caliper brakes, F41 heavy duty suspension, and a
4.11:1 positraction rear end. Only ten
ZR2 coupes and two SR2 convertibles were built, making this one of the rarest
of production Corvettes. Another
offering, and only slightly less rare than the 1971 ZR2, is the Monza Red 1970 LT1 ZR1 coupe, one of only
twenty five built. Like the ZR2 the LT1
ZR1 was built for performance and included the J56 power dual pinned brakes,
the F41 heavy duty suspension, M22 “rockcrusher”, and the 4.11:1 positraction
rear end. The major difference from the
ZR2 is the ZR1’s 350 cubic inch 370 HP engine.
The list of award winning Corvettes at Barrett-Jackson® this
year is lengthy. Whatever your taste in
Corvettes you can bet that Barrett-Jackson® will have a selection from which
you can choose. Gary Bennett,
Barrett-Jackson’s® vice president of consignment, has put together an impressive
array of quality Corvettes in preparation for the super bowl of auctions in
January.
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| Mecum sold Harley Earl's Personal Corvette in October for $1.5 (Photo: Mecum) |
On the other side of the country Dana Mecum will kick off
the world’s largest automobile auction, offering upwards of 3000 cars during
his extraordinary ten day event January 17th through the 26th
at Kissimmee’s Osceola Heritage Park.
One of the foundations to his success over the years has been America’s
sports car, the Corvette, one of Mecum’s® primary business focuses. Each of his dozen 2013 auctions were
earmarked by extraordinary and often historically significant Corvettes. It was during his Dallas auction in September
that the world’s record price was set for a Corvette selling at auction,
$3.2M. Then in his next auction only a
few weeks later in Chicago, he sold Harley Earl’s personal and specially built
1963 Corvette for $1.5M. Each of his auctions
offers a vast selection of Corvettes, usually highlighted by an extremely rare
or historical headline car. “The
dealmaker,” as Mecum is known, will kick off his 2014 auction venue with the
same intense focus on remarkable Corvettes.
By the time consignments close you can expect Mecum® to
offer have almost 400 Corvettes consigned and even at this early date they are
well on their way. Traditionally Mecum’s®
Kissimmee event has more than double the number of Corvettes consigned to Barrett-Jackson’s®
Scottsdale event. This is proportional
to the auction overall where Mecum® traditionally offers almost double the
number of cars offered by Barrett-Jackson®.
Mainly this is due to the large number of entry level cars offered at
Mecum’s® Kissimmee auction. This fact is
supported by the fact that Barrett-Jackson’s® average selling price for all
cars is almost double Mecum’s® (B-J’s Salon collection also impacts the average
selling price). Though the Corvette
market is red hot, “good buys” can still be found during the initial days of
Mecum’s® ten day event. So even though
Mecum® has several “blue chip” Corvettes being sold, there are Corvettes
available for every budget and every level of collecting in Kissimmee.
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| The Corvette that saved the Corvette Brand 1956 SR Prototype (Photo: Mecum) |
The main attraction of this year’s Mecum® Kissimmee
extravaganza is one of the most important cars in Corvette’s sixty year
history, the car that was virtually responsible for saving the brand from
extinction. The car has become known as
“The Real McCoy” as a result of a 1956 advertisement celebrating it’s Sebring
class win and helping promote the car’s performance credentials. The
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| The Real McCoy Ad 1956 (Photo: GM) |
details and exciting history of this car
are too long to adequately cover in this article but suffice it to say that
Zora Arkus-Duntov built this car in an effort to demonstrate the Corvette’s
performance credentials. There is little
dispute that the initial Corvettes were not performance-based cars, nor did
they offer many comfort and convenience amenities. In 1954 and 1955 sales fell so drastically
that GM seriously had the Corvette on the chopping block. When Ford® introduced the well-appointed Thunderbird
in 1955 Corvette’s fate was virtually sealed.
But Duntov convinced GM executives to not give up on the car, but rather
transform it into a true performance car, a real sports car but with added amenities. Duntov built a prototype 1956 Corvette with a
special bored-out 307 cubic inch engine with dual Carter 4-barrel carburetors
and a special grind camshaft which has become known as the “Duntov cam.” Duntov set a “Flying Mile” speed record at
Daytona averaging 150.582 MPH in his prototype Corvette and then after further
preparation by Smokey Yunick, John Fitch and Walt Hansgen drove it to a class
win in the 1956 Sebring race, helping establish the Corvette as a legitimate
performance sports car. As a result the
Corvette brand was saved from extinction.
The 1956 SR prototype has been inducted into the Bloomington Gold Great
Hall and will cross the block in Kissimmee on Saturday, January 25th.
If you are a dedicated Corvette enthusiast you probably have
heard the story of the 1954 Corvette that was entombed by the original owner in
a sealed brick vault inside one of his grocery stores in 1959. Then in 1986, long after the original owner who
entombed it had died, the car was liberated from its 27 year entombment and
spent the next ten years in the living room of the original owner’s daughter. Though
the original Polo white paint had yellowed and blistered due to the moisture
inside the brick tomb the rest of the car was in remarkably good condition and
is one of the lowest mileage, unrestored, first generation Corvettes in
existence. The daughter of the original
owner agreed to sell the car to a collector with the provision to preserve the
car and not to restore it as a tribute to her father. The collector has honored
the agreement. The car has been
displayed in the Bloomington Gold Special Collection in 1996. This storied car will be sold on Saturday
January 25th.
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| 1963 Z06 originally raced by Dick Lang (Photo: Mecum) |
One of the second
generation main attractions will be the concours winning 1963 Z06 originally raced
by Dick Lang. Owned by Terry Michaelis
of ProTeam Corvettes®, the car was impeccably restored by Nabers Brothers of
Houston at a cost of over $220K and appears as it did when raced at Daytona. During 2013 the Corvette has won awards at
concours d’elegance events throughout the country. The Riverside red Z06 was one of 199 1963
Z06’s built and like most was taken immediately to the track. Dick Lang, owner
of a Chevrolet dealership and avid Corvette racer, successfully campaigned the
car throughout the Midwest and Eastern parts of the country. Like all Z06’s it was powered by a 327 cubic
inch 360 horsepower fuel injected engine and came with a close ratio 4-speed
transmission, heavy duty suspension, sintered metallic power drum brakes with
forward self adjusters, and a positraction rear. In addition, it is one of the early “batch
built” Z06’s and also has the rare 36 gallon “big tank”. The car has been the recipient of several
awards and was recently given the coveted NCRS American Heritage Award.
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| 1963 Corvette Z06 (Photo: Mecum) |
Though the 1963 Lang Z06 is one of the main features of
several outstanding second generation Corvettes, it is not the only choice of a
rare 1963 Z06. Lot S172 is a Sebring
Silver 1963 Z06 coupe with a fully documented history. The car was owned in the 1970s by Eric Gill,
Corvette Z06 historian and restorer.
Like the Lang Z06, this one was also the recipient of an outstanding
body-off restoration by Nabers Brothers.
The car is optioned with the standard Z06 performance options plus the
addition of the N03 “Big Tank” option, N11 off road aluminized exhaust, A01
tinted glass, A 31 power windows and
full wheel covers. In addition to being
the subject of several articles it has received awards including Bloomington
Gold and NCRS Top Flight. The beautiful
Z06 has been displayed at the National Corvette Museum and has won Best of
Class awards at the 2012 Santa Fe Concorso and the 2012 Hilton Head Concours
d'Elegance.
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| Custom interior of Mrs. Harley Earl's Pink Corvette (Photo: Mecum) |
There will be almost 100 second generation Corvettes
crossing Mecum’s block, encompassing a vast assortment of factory colors and
production options. Several will have
the desirable big block engine. Not a
big block, but a 1963 pink, “styling” coupe specially built for Harley Earl’s
wife is on the docket. And if you want
something a little more aggressive, there is an exciting 1964 Grand Sport resto-mod
replica updated with a LS engine, 6 speed transmission, air conditioning and
updated power and comfort amenities.
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| 1969 L88 (Photo: Mecum) |
The headliner of third generation Corvettes will undoubtedly
be the 1969 Lemans Blue L88 convertible, S163.
This is one of only 116 1969 L88s and one of the total 216 L88
production cars ever produced. This is
unquestionably the most coveted production engine in Corvette history. This Corvette has undergone a recently-completed,
frame-off restoration by Roger Gibson, noted Corvette restorer and took nineteen
months and over 5000 hours at a cost of $242K.
The convertible has the auxiliary black vinyl hardtop and has been
verified by the NCRS Shipping Data Report and Documentation Validation Service
records for the tank sticker. In
addition there is a complete comprehensive photographic record of the
restoration, copies of all receipts and a complete and detailed description of
the work performed by Gibson and his team.
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| SLEDGEHAMMER Formerly World's Fastest Street Car (Photo: Mecum) |
Frequently in Mecum®
events an entire collection is consigned and at Kissimmee two major Corvette
collections have been consigned with several impressive models. If you are a C4 enthusiast the Richard Berry
Callaway Collection is an outstanding collection of Callaway Corvettes. The cornerstone of the collection is one of
the most famous Corvettes in history, the renowned Sledgehammer. The Sledgehammer was purpose built for speed
and to showcase the abilities of Callaway’s turbocharged engines. The silver Sledgehammer owned the record for the
fastest street-driven car in the world when John Lingenfelter drove it from
Callaway’s headquarters in Connecticut to the 7.5 mile Transportation Research
Center oval track and attained a top speed of 254.76 MPH on October 26, 1988. The C4 has a modified Callaway Aero body and
a 898 HP modified turbocharged Chevrolet engine. Incredibly the car also has air conditioning
and a radio. The Sledgehammer held the
record for world’s fastest street car for 25 years. In 2013 this incredible, historic car was
inducted into the Bloomington Great Hall which recognizes 50 people and 50
Corvettes that significantly influenced the Corvette. The Sledgehammer and its other seven
stable mates will cross the block on Friday, January 24. In addition to Berry’s Callaway collection
there are an additional 16 additional Corvettes that are part of his collection
from other generations that will cross the block over the ten days of
auction.
The Roger Judski collection is a group of thirteen
Corvettes, primarily C4’s, four of which are ZR1s . Except for the two Corvette Challenge race
cars as a part of the collection, all of the rest of the collection are
extremely low mileage cars, most of which have less than 10 original
miles.
Based on the impressive line-up of some of the finest
Corvettes in the world, January’s super bowl auction season is poised to be one
of the most exciting in recent memory.
So if you are in the market for a collectible Corvette you probably want
to make your reservations now for the week of January 12th in
Scottsdale and the following week in Kissimmee.
And if you get any resistance from your “significant other” both Arizona
and Florida are winter vacation destinations so you could always bring them
along. I mean, after all, how could they
resist leaving the cold winter weather behind?
They probably wouldn’t even care if you spent all day checking out beautiful
Corvettes while they basked in the sun.
