Showing posts with label Barrett-Jackson auction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barrett-Jackson auction. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Saturday, July 30, 2011

APPRAISING YOUR CLASSIC RACE CAR CAN BE IMPORTANT

Written by Bobby Bennett


Ray Allen’s SS/E Automatic 1970 Chevelle selling for over $1 Million dollars at the Barrett-Jackson auction sent a message loud and clear – old race cars have a
value. A similar 1972 Chevelle, also powered by a Truppi-Kling Competition engine, sold for $121,000, confirmed the statement.

Having an appraisal on your special car can be the difference in your special edition model raking in a fair market value and someone taking advantage of you or your estate.

Jon Lundberg, who made a name for decades as one of drag racing’s premiere live track announcers, is doing his part to ensure the classic cars get their just due on the auction block.


“An appraisal is a snap shot of value taken at a particular place in time,” explained Lundberg, who got into the auto appraisal business after buying Southwest Valuations from Don McReynolds.

Lundberg’s firm is plenty busy these days traveling to various parts of the country putting a price tag on rare vehicles. 

“We have a specific pattern that we follow,” Lundberg explained. “We come to where the vehicle is, whether that’s a racing event where I can do a bunch of cars and save the racers having to have the traveling expense, or if it’s individual racing car – I do both. it happens as well. We show up, we take somewhere in the area of 100 digital photographs, and we ask before we come that the car owner complete for us two forms that we have developed to help us identify the particular vehicle; one is called 'Unique Attributes' and the other is called “Provenance.”

Both documents are exclusive and copyrighted through Lundberg’s company.

The Unique Attributes form follows the dictates of an art object identification program developed originally by the Getty Museum, and approximately 1,000 companies worldwide, to quantify and very carefully identify art objects which might be stolen or criminally duplicated. This form very painfully asks the owner, driver, crew chief or - whoever fills it out - to identify almost every operating facet of the vehicle and becomes part of the report.

The Provenance is a race car’s resume, a history of its accomplishments back to its build date

 “If you have the front cover of HOT ROD Magazine, that’s a value-adder,” Lundberg added. “If you won a major national event or a significant independent event like the Super Stock Nationals or the Popular Hot Rodding Magazine Meet then that adds value as well because that means the car ran an open competition and was a winner. Those two elements are significant value-adders.”

With the Unique Attributes and Provenance forms filled out, and an in-person inspection, Lundberg returns to his office and begins the long and tedious chore of homework. For an unlicensed competition race vehicle – literally - these forms become its birth certificate.

“It proves that the vehicle existed, it operated and is known, and it has a physical identity and a fair market or actual cash value,” Lundberg said. “What we tell the owner to do for insurance,  and estate planning purposes or IRS charitable donation purposes is to give one copy to the significant person for whom the appraisal is being done and put the second one in a safe deposit box along with the title to their house so that if anything happens at anytime to that vehicle you have a document that states those things clearly and in a quantified manner.”

This process can take anywhere from 30 to 90 days, depending on how much information is provided at the project onset of the process and when the actual inspection is conducted.

These 30 to 90 days can be crucial to your family with a rare and/or vintage relic sitting in your garage if you should unexpectedly pass away. In another scenario, he’s in the midst of completing an appraisal for the family of a race car owner suffering from Alzheimer’s.

“We find that in a predominate number of cases, second generation family members of a racer who dies aren’t really that much interested in the physical vehicle,” Lundberg admits. “What it allows for the remaining widow to do is to either, auction it off, charitably donate, or physically sell the vehicle hopefully  understanding what its value is in a real world sense, because lacking this information -  in all too many cases - somebody gets taken advantage of.”

How much does it cost to get a car appraised? According to Lundberg, those interested in retaining his firm, can visit his website at www.autovaluz.com.  You can either contact him via email or any of the phone numbers there; they have a nationwide toll-free number. 


Once Lundberg’s firm is contacted they will do a 15 minute interview in which they determine what it will take to investigate and draw a value on the project.   The potential client may then evaluate Lundberg’s process as each receives a Scope of Work Proposal containing all relevant details and fees.

“The most economical way for these kinds of things to be done if there is a considerable distance between our homes involved is for the individual car owner to join a collection of cars at a major event,” Lundberg explained. “We do four to six major events per year. We always state where we are going and when we are going to be there so that car owners who are interested in having this done can assemble themselves. What we do then of course is split the transportation costs among the clients.”

Finding the cars and getting to the point of actually inspecting the car isn’t the toughest part of Lundberg’s challenge. Believe it or not, the most complex task is in getting those two important and basic documents filled out.

“If you take two vehicles that are built exactly the same, had exactly the same power train, two different crews, one wins a significant number of national events and open competition drag races, and the other smokes the tires and is the leading oil leaker, which one of those do you think is going to be worth the most money?” Lundberg offers.

Even though getting those documents can sometimes be a headache, just embarking on the process can be rewarding for Lundberg, much like announcing on the microphone at a drag race has been for decades.

“My role as a color [commentator] is to give back to the sport that gave me so much satisfaction for 46 years,” Lundberg explained. “And now I have an opportunity as well to contribute to the safety and value retention of this marvelous group of restored and re-created vehicles that are coming to the sport.”

And that, Lundberg adds, is priceless, no matter the appraisal.

SOURCE

Southwest Valuations
783 West Clear Creek Way
Oro Valley, Arizona 85737-6954
1-877-427-7249.
http://www.southwest-valuations.com




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Saturday, February 26, 2011

How to Buy a Classic Car at Auction

No. 1 rule: Do your homework




This elegant 1966 Continental four door convertible as an excellent buy at the Toronto auction selling for $20,000 including the 10 per cent buyers fee charged by the auction.

Photograph by: Alyn Edwards, CNS

 Anybody with any interest in classic cars has tuned into the Barrett-Jackson auctions carried live on television to witness the excitement and high drama of some of the most beautiful vehicles from our past, changing hands.

Classic vehicles selling in less than five minutes on the auction block represents an instant appraisal of what that car, truck or motorcycle is really worth.

It’s what the vendor will sell the car for and what the most motivated purchaser will pay. Sometimes there are incredible bargains for alert bidders. But few of those viewing this apparent free for all spending extravaganza would consider buying a car this way.

I wonder why because there are a number of great classic car auctions in Canada featuring wonderful vehicles. The spring and fall Collector Car Productions auctions held at Toronto’s International Centre are the largest in the country with Harold Henninger’s Car Crazy spring and fall auctions coming in second.
The auctions held at Abbotsford’s Tradex Centre hold third place. So what should you do to buy a car at a collector car auction?

“Do your homework, that’s the number one thing,” says Dan Spendick who heads up Toronto’s Collector Car Productions.

Spendick, a 16-year veteran classic vehicle auctioneer, encourages buyers to carefully research everything about the vehicle they want to buy, know in advance exactly what they’re looking for and what they should pay.

The Internet is a primary tool for research. Just paste the year make and model of the car, truck or motorcycle that you are looking for and see what’s offered for sale by vendors all over North America. You can also check the websites of auction companies like Spendick’s Classic Car Productions, Car Crazy Classic Car Auctions in Calgary, Barrett- Jackson, Mecum’s and others to see what similar cars have sold for. Auction results are typically posted on these websites immediately after sales.

The N.A.D.A. (National Automobile Dealers Association) classic car value book is a very handy reference tool and classic vehicle values can be checked online on the N.A.D.A website.

Harold Henninger, who has done a total of 19 classic car auctions in Calgary averaging 225 vehicles going across the auction block in his spring and fall sales, urges people to spend as much time as necessary to carefully check out all aspects of a potential purchase before waving their bidder’s card at an auction.
“Buy quality. You can always resell a quality vehicle because there will always be a market for it,” Henninger says. Henninger also suggests people invest in convertibles and he actively recruits drop top vehicles for his sale.

“Convertibles have always been a blue chip investment. They can be worth three times as much as a hardtop but don’t cost much more to restore. When the top goes down, the price goes up,” he says. When buying at auctions. You must add the buyers’ fee that is usually 10 per cent of the ‘hammered’ price and five per cent GST.

If you live in a province where there is sales tax, that is paid when you register the vehicle. Also factor in transportation costs. If you buy a car at an auction in Toronto and live in Vancouver, the cost of transporting the vehicle can range from $1,000 to $2,000. Art Carty and Peter Fawcett operate Canada’s oldest classic car dealership and restoration shop called Fawcett Motor Carriage in Whitby – 30 minutes east of Toronto. The company has been buying and selling cars at auctions since the business began in 1964. They urge buyers to be very prudent in deciding what kind of classic vehicle they want.

“Find the kind of classic vehicle you think you want to own and drive it. You may change your mind after you’ve been behind the wheel or that may reinforce your decision to acquire that type of classic vehicle” Peter Fawcett says.

Art Carty says it’s a matter of buyers getting completely educated before they make the purchase. They may own the vehicle a long time and it should be a good experience. Fawcett Motor Carriage sells all its classic cars with a full six-month mechanical warranty so buyers of classic vehicles won’t be hit with bills to repair unforeseen mechanical problems.

The best way to get into the hobby and buy the classic vehicle you always wanted is to start by attending auctions, seeing what’s being offered, doing research on the vehicle of your choice and then get a bidder’s card.

There may be a great classic car at a bargain price waiting for you right now.

Alyn Edwards is a partner in Peak Communicators, a Vancouver-based public relations company.

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