The 43rd annual Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Collector Car Auction is officially in the books, and what a show it was: More than 1,400 cars were sold for in excess of $100 million, and when the final sales total is calculated, it is expected to be a new all-time record.
Barrett-Jackson’s new 12,000-seat permanent facility at Westworld was jammed with bidders and spectators all week long and attendance was up sharply as well.
On the auction front, there were several world records set:
• A 1967 Chevrolet Corvette L88 (pictured above), one of only 20 made and the only one that’s red-on-red, sold for $3.85 million with the 10 percent bidder fee on top of the $3.5 million hammer price.
• A 1969 L88 Corvette race car known as “The Rebel” sold for $2.86 million with bidder’s fee. One of the most successful road racers of all time, The Rebel set records that stood for decades.
• An Amos Minter-restored 1957 Ford Thunderbird brought $330,000. A stunning car in Gunmetal Gray over red, it was equipped with the E Series dual four-barrel carburetor setup and was one of only 4 percent of T-birds that year to be equipped with a manual transmission.
As always at Barrett-Jackson, there were huge numbers put up for charity, as well. A combination package with a World War II-era Cessna scout plane and a military truck raised $1 million for the Armed Forces Foundation, while a 2014 COPO Camaro drag race car went for $700,000 on behalf of the Achilles Foundation of Freedom Team of Wounded Veterans.
NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick paid $650,000 for the right to buy the first production example of the new Z/28 Camaro. All the proceeds from that sale went to Cornerstone Schools in Detroit.
Not to be outdone, Ford Motor Co. auctioned off the first retail example of the 2015 Ford Mustang GT, raising $300,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation .
All told, it was a record-shattering week in Scottsdale, one that will not soon be forgotten.