GAINESVILLE – About an hour into the Saturday afternoon auction of one of the nation's finest private collections of vintage and muscle cars in a converted horse barn on a 450 acre estate near here, the crowd of onlookers and bidders whooped as the auctioneer said these words for the first time all day: "Do I hear $400,000?"
The seller, Milton Robson – who made his fortune in the institutional foods business and built his collection of rare cars over decades – was hoping to get $350,000 for the one-of-a kind 1960 Chrysler 300F four-speed Convertible with a 413-cubic-inch, 400-horsepower engine, with 13,045 miles on the odometer.
The auctioneer couldn’t draw the last few grand out of the group of about 500 potential buyers and spectators sitting on folding chairs in front of the auction stage, surrounded by some of the most beautiful, potent and buffed to luminescence masterpieces of design and engineering ever to roll out of Detroit.
Still, the Chrysler fetched more than Robson had anticipated -- $397,500.
It had been a tense few weeks coming up to the auction. With the economy in a slough, there was no telling how much people were willing to pay for vintage cars offered for a starting bid as high as $750,000 (a 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge Ram Air IV Convertible).
Since the auction was without reserve, the cars had to be sold to the highest bidder and could not be withdrawn if the bid was not high enough. And another 10 percent buyer's premium was added to the price struck when the auctioneer banged the gavel and yelled, “Sold!”
Friday, and Saturday morning, two hours before the 11 a.m. auction, buyers and the curious from all over the country and as far away as Brazil had come to eyeball Robson’s eye-popping collection of 55 cars.
Robson worked the crowd Friday afternoon building as much anticipation as he could while applying one last buffing to his collection's reputation, telling stories about every car as he encountered potential bidders.
"The thrill of collecting is the hunt," Robson told a reporter as he stood beside a gleaming red 1962 Pontiac Catalina Convertible he called a "driver" -- a car so relatively inexpensive (starting bid $40,000) the top bidder might actually drive it instead of parking it on display under lock and key.
“I tracked this car down and flew up to Bloomington, Illinois, and was going to have it shipped back. But it was in such good condition and had such low mileage, about 19,000, I just drove it back to Georgia.”
Robson said he tracked down the owner of that Chrysler 300F -- the one that sold for almost $400,000 Saturday -- in Alabama. But "it took another four years of negotiating before I could buy it,” said Robson, who can’t name his favorite car in the collection: “There’s a handful that are my favorites.”
He withheld some of his prize collection from the auction and said he may start collecting again, but only after he sells his estate – also offered in the auction booklet, for $22 million – and moves to Florida. He retired a few years ago after selling his institutional food business.
Robson said he didn't know if his collection would fetch the kind of prices he was asking.
But on Friday, a sampling of potential bidders left the impression that prices, as collector Vernon Smith, who flew down from Newfoundland to bid on one of the GTOs for sale, put it, were "a tad high."
Others were here just to gaze at, and palpitate over, these marvelous and lost beasts of the American road with huge engines and huge appetites for high-octane gasoline that, in their day, sold for a few dimes a gallon.
“Lord, that 1969 Yenko Z-28 is beautiful,” said Robby Fox, who drove up Friday from Augusta just to ogle the collection. “But I can’t afford it."
On Saturday a few of the vehicles sold at about the bottom bid starting price advertised in the auction catalog. But, still, the prices paid were high in a vintage car market that has been down about 20 percent over the last two years, said Charles Durand, a 70-year-old Augusta collector who attends about 10 car auctions a year.
"I cannot believe the prices that are being paid in this economy," Durand said. "I was at an auction in Indiana last month and it was very reasonable what people were paying. But the difference here is this collection is the best of the best, this is an awesome collection."
Some bidders walked away, hoping for another day when, with a few more dollars, they might finally acquire the ride of their dreams. That was the case with retired Sandy Springs residential developer Ron Smith.
He came “with a check in my pocket” contemplating buying the 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk Supercharged Coupe he stood beside throughout the auction. It sold to another bidder, lower than the suggested $50,000 opening bid in the catalog -- $46,200 -- but that was about $10,000 more than Smith wanted to pay.
"I was hoping for the low 30s," he said. "Maybe next time."
The prized beast of the show, the 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge Convertible, sold for $620,000, as the crowd rose to the occasion after almost four hours of buying. They whooped and roared with every $10,000 jump in price, as a bidder in the front dueled with a bidder in the back.
When the gavel came down, they applauded. The buyer got rounds of back slaps and handshakes as he went to the front of the room and talked to the other bidder. He said he was thrilled. "It's one of a kind!" he told a reporter, but declined to give his name. "You want the IRS to know?" he said.
Robson said afterward he was "pleased with the results" of selling 55 of his beloved cars. And why not? They fetched an average of about $167,000 each – for a total of $9.2 million.
That’s one heck of a used car sale.
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