Another Measurement of the Current Economy

You have to admit, once Sunday Morning is over (8:30 AM) there's not much on television unless you like stinking sports (the word "stinking" is your clue here). Well, awhile back I ran across a show called "Chasing Classic Cars" that literally travels all over the world in pursuit of buying and selling truly classic cars. I'm no special exotic car afficianado but even I can be amazed at some of what I see.


I'm especially interested when they open up a decrepit barn or garage where the classic car has been sitting for the last 30-40 years and someone has just died so they decide they are going to do something about it. Kind of like the unsuspecting elderly person who brings in their great-aunt Mabel's antique dish to the "Antique Roadshow" and finds out it's Fabrege or Tiffany and worth tens of thousands of dollars.


Anyway, on this show they bring in a gentleman named Wayne Carini who is a decided expert on classic cars and actually owns an operation where they will give the cars an overhaul either for the client or for their own investment/subsequent sale. I can't imagine the crazy fool who would ever try to put anything over on Wayne. (In the photo here, Wayne is the one without the hat.)


Anyway, I just watched him trying to sell his client's Cobra Roadster 427SC, which he had valued at $1.5MM (they call this "the reserve")at a huge Mekum auction in Indiana. This is probably the 30th time we've watched one of these events in the last year and a half where they are adamant they need to make a certain amount of money on the car of the moment but they don't come close. In this case the bidding went over a million then dropped off. It was driven off the stage as a "no sale".


Prior to this car, the Auction tried to sell a Shelby Cobra Daytona coupe that was a world champion race car. It had been valued at a minimum of $8MM. The couldn't get the bidding any higher than $6.8MM. So it also was driven off as a "no sale".


I just have to wonder what planet they're on to think someone is going to pay full price for anything right now, including an exotic collector car. There are little segments of the population that just refuse to face the fact that we are in a depressed economy...HELLO! Earth to car collectors! My heart bleeds peanut butter.