While you’ve been obsessed with reading about VWgate, Fiat Chryslergate, F1Melbournegate (suddenly changing the race date) and lobby group T&E’s test showing that new cars, including the Mercedes A, C and E-Class, BMW 5 Series and Peugeot 308, are guzzling 50 per cent more fuel than their lab test results, there’s been really important stuff going on in the world.
Last month it was the Barrett-Jackson Las Vegas auction in the 3300 room Mandalay Bay Resort. There were a lot of important lessons for you out of this auction and a heap for me from my stay in the $1300 sky suite on the 62nd floor. Of course I did the $900 dive with sharks in the five million litre shark reef pool. Dressed in the compulsory chain mail suit I wondered why I was paying a grand for something I could do for free at Byron Bay or Bondi with much bigger fish.
Naturally putting the interests of my readers first, I had to check out the Toptional Moorea Beach Club. This bit of selfless research on the 2000 tonnes of real sand set me back only $700 for an umbrella and lilo, $10 for a beer, $200 for the bottle of rum and very strained eyes. And yes, I went topless too.
Top price at the auction was $440,000 for a 1968 Chev Corvette L88. Look, today the do-gooders wouldn’t allow this car to be built, let alone sold. For about $7000, you got extreme hot American muscle. For about the same price you could have bought a Ferrari 275 GTS that ran the quarter mile (there were no metres at the time) in 15.5 seconds or you could have paid an extraordinary $14,400 for a 275 GTS/4 NART, probably the greatest Ferrari of all time. Today that 275 will cost you about $35 million but it will take 14.5 seconds to knock of the quarter. The Corvette L88, pictured, in standard form will take a second off that and with a bit of racing fuel and no muffler will take four seconds off.
You could have driven the Corvette out of the showroom, turned left into Challenger Drive and on to the Sebring Straight and won the 12-hour race. Even in those days there were fun police so GM didn’t promote the car. The Barrett-Jackson sale is about as low as it gets for the V8-powered fibreglass bodied screamers. In top condition you will be paying $1m.
The second lesson comes from the 1966 lightweight Ford Fairlane with an R code 427 side oiler that sold for a record $390,000. This was No 53 of 57 built with a 10 out of 10 restoration. A normal 1966 Fairlane in good nick will cost you about $15,000. And up until recently even a great R code was bringing only $100,000. But any car built in limited numbers, in great condition with all the papers and some history is a guaranteed good investment.
Look, I’m not saying Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building is not a top spot but, come on, think about the Toptional Moorea Beach Club and the environs of Carlton. I don’t think the Mandalay Bay Resort was ever used as a morgue during a flu epidemic. Anyway, in two weeks there will be some top metal there for Motorclassica madness, a three-day orgy of concourse, classics and car auction. Ted Bruce owns the auction and his main man, Jim Nicholls, is running things.
Jim has some top cars including a very rare Barker-bodied 1914 Rolls-Royce 40/50 HP Landaulet B-series Silver Ghost once owned by my favourite entrepreneur, Peter Briggs. Any bid close to a mill should get it.
Read the rest here at The Australian
