Barrett-Jackson fever

January 24^th. Only four days away. I have already studied the docket and planned which cars I will be bidding on if I hit the lottery Wednesday night. The 1 point umpty billion dollar prize was claimed last week so I have had to pare back my selections considerably.

That’s right it’s time for the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction again and I am stoked!

I know, I know. The publicity and unfiltered greed of these major auctions has ruined the old car hobby. Now every dude with a rusty slant six Duster in the yard thinks he’s sitting on $20,000, interesting cars are being priced out of reach by speculators and 70% of the American population think they know what ‘original” and “numbers matching” mean. (They don't.) When was the last time you cruised Craigslist without seeing, “I know what this is worth!” on a car where asking price is about 3 times what it’s worth or “a restored 74 Monza just like this sold at Barrett-Jackson for 2.5 Million”? There is no denying that the “what’s-it-worth” spectacle of Scottsdale can be a little soul stealing. But I can’t look away.

I was out at Scottsdale a couple of years ago. It was fantastic! You can’t even see all the cars in one day. Even without the auction, this is one hell of a car show. I saw cars I remembered from the hot-rod books when I was a kid. The Barris Asteriod Vette was there! How about the Galpin Ford “Back Up Pick-up”? So many beautiful exotics you don’t even turn your head after being there an hour. My honored brother-in-law “Uncle” Dave and I had a fantastic time even though we didn’t buy anything, this time.

So what’s this year’s raisin pie? With my lottery winnings I will be buying the Super-Van and the Foxy Vette. I can’t get enough of those Barris cars. I’ll also be bidding on the Gas monkey Corvette Summer car even if it is a fake, and ugly. But man, when I was eleven that thing was bad-ass. I may be interested in the Bugazzi and that green Lincoln with the Von Dutch striping too so just keep your paddles down when those roll by.

I won’t be making it to Arizona this winter (sans lottery winnings) but I do plan to keep up with the live auction streaming on my IPad. I know these events are just money-belching circuses but I do love a circus.

Any other Scottsdale watchers out there? What cars are you spending your lottery money on? Maybe we can form a pact not bid against one another. At least on the cars I'm interested in.