Pebble Cobras

Makes me think of the deals I passed on over the years. Hindsight is 20-20 I guess.

 

hindsight is $-$

 

Hi Vern,
Based on my contacts with various individuals in the business, potential buyers, potential sellers, etc. it seems to me that the market doesn't really care much about the cars, their history, or their condition anymore. The goal seems to be get a title to a 1960s car in hand and try to resell it for profit. There are not many cars for sale in any one year and as time goes on the actual condition and or original content seems to matter less each year. Genuine Cobra and 427 Cobra parts are extremely scarce. Good replacement parts have dried up as well because the major players in having new parts made have either dropped out for some reason or switched to parts for cars that look like old ones but whose parts aren't suitable for old ones. A pretty shiny car described as “restored” can be any but restored. I have seen images of cars for sale that looked clean but were also missing many thousands of dollars worth (if you could find them) original parts.

I agree with you, big price for a car needing $200,000 or more in subsequent work and parts seems nuts. Unfortunately that is what has happened. Worse than that, there are still people buying cars and discarding a car’s original parts to put on something else they like better. Imagine a car like a 427 Cobra lasting until very recently with its original engine intact and then a person that owned the car for a short time replaced the entire induction system. The original system was for practical purposes given away. The current owner might find a correct style replacement but the original to the car system is now lost. The short time owner didn’t seem to care about the car’s integrity.

Dan

 

Prices do seem to be taking a small dip of both Cobras and 427 Cobras AND as they do the better cars people were thinking about offering in other than auction venues will probably go back to whatever their status quo was. Part 1: A few owners of higher grade cars that I know get itchy when they see prices soar BUT will kill the thought of selling at even a hint of falling prices. Part 2: They say, why would I sell my very original car for a price that a car with questioned history sells for? (Think like we might have in 1969. Back in 1969 a rusty, wrecked, or butchered 1966 Mustang hard top on a car lot might be $700 while a real nice one a block over might be $950. It would have been crazy to sell a great car for the same money as the junker.)

I hate that value has so much to do with Cobras and 427 Cobras. It would better in my opinion if they were "worth" no more and no less than any other 1960s car. In that scenario only those that loved the cars would bother with them and those people that would sell their family for another big score could hawk something else.

Dan

 

"most of the largely original cars never see the auction block or public sale" ... absolutely.

"how could one tell what a truly good car is worth at any given time?" ... the
"market" can't.

Privately it is still whatever two parties agree to. I know of people selling cars above and below "market" in private transactions. The very best cars might change hands two or three hands before the public is aware of what is happening. These deals are real. How about the auctions? Ever notice the same car for sale and "selling" more than once in a year but never seeming to change what garage it is in?

 

The conundrum about restored vs. unrestored

A year or so ago I asked Lynn Park, who owns ten real Cobras, how much an unrestored 289 was. He said $300,000.
I then asked well what is a restored one worth and he said $300,000
I said "You mean the guy who sinks tens of thousands into restoring it is not going to get anything for his additional investment?" and he shrugged, implying that one man's restoration is not anothers and that in all likelihood even a restored car will be brought back to bare metal and work done to bring it back to the way it was back in the Sixties. I can imagine now that "barn find" cars are being shown at Concours (just saw two shabby Ferraris at the Palm Springs Concours) what this does to restoration shops' futures--why restore it when if you find the right car you can sell it just like you found it for the same money?

 

Vern,
These auctions were from 2006 and list the "Final Bid". That does not mean the cars actually sold to a new owner.
The estimate may be placed by the auction company, but the reserve was determined from the seller.

 

I would agree, if the high bid was real and the car was sold.

 

"If the bid was legit"

That last line has great significance. Without casting any aspersions on any particular auction companies, when I was in the side business of buying and locating exotic cars I would notice the same cast of "shady" characters at every auction. Sometimes they would enter a bid, driving the price up, and then disappear outside the tent, having accomplished their purpose of sucking a legit bidder into entering the next bid that tops theirs. One dealer in RR and Bentley from California even asked me to bid on one of his own cars , an S2 Bentley with custom coachwork, but I refused because I didn't want to be thrown out for entering a bid when I wasn't a registered bidder, plus I didn't want to be stuck with the car! So if I was going to bid on a collector car at an auction, I'd try to get someone who is an auction regular to give me advice on whether he thinks bids are coming from real bidders, with real money, or shills (schills?) there only to pump up the price another notch. Of course some bidders are gilt-edged, say like the late Otis Chandler (former publisher LA Times), when they bid you know they have the money. In fact one time I was buying a Ford at Galpin Ford and I saw Otis enter the showroom and I told my salesman "give that man whatever he wants, just hand him the key" and he didn't believe me and put poor Otis through the old "we got to check your credit" gambit.

 

laptops have changed auctions too, if you use them

One thing that makes the auction scene a little more fathomable for the buyer is that now you can take a wireless laptop, go to the auction the earliest day (Barrett Jackson you can even go a week early) and start researching the cars you want to bid on to see if everything is jake with them. For instance, I saw a Pantera 7X at the RM Auction at Monterey and they had no sign on it declaring it was a one off prototype, possibly the only US legal 1975 Pantera, etc. etc. but if someone wanted to research it, they could have gotten the SN, gotten onto the net, found Pantera forums, etc. etc. and realized that it was a rare prototype being sold not just a custom Pantera. I think most people who attended that auction didn't know the significance of it because there was no sign announcing it. The good thing about auctions is you never know what's going to come up and be presented, so I think it behooves you to do advance research on the cars you want so that when that special car comes up, you are ready and have files on that car. There are dozens of cars I have files on, just no money to buy them, but at least when they are unearthed, I will know what they are, say for instance the Plymouth XNR two seater prototype, last seen 30-years ago in a picture in Saudi Arabia...

 

Schill bidders and running prices up, sounds alot like EBAY.

 

What is market on 289 Cobras today? Is NADA somewhat accurate on the roadsters?