Is premarital sex a sin? Maybe. But it’s also practical. Sexual compatibility is important for the long-term health of a marriage. Saying “I do” without doing the horizontal mambo is like buying a car without a test drive. Don’t get me started about that. Too late…
I recently bought (and later sold) a 2014 Ferrari 458 Italia Spider with 32k miles on the clock. Not only did I drive Maranello’s mean machine before signing my life away, I paid an expert to go over it with a fine-toothed OBD2 scanner. And then I drove a lower mileage version of the exact same car, also subject to the automotive equivalent of a proctological exam. It didn’t look, feel or sound like the same car. IMHO it wasn’t nearly as good.
Now you could say, Ferrari. Anyone familiar with older examples of the breed will tell you: they’re built like crap. Cast iron where it should be billet. Cheap plastic that should be proper polymer. More importantly, parts that can’t be replaced with spares without modifications. In other words, a lack of basic quality and quality control.
But Porsche! You can jump into any used Porsche and it will be a Porsche! Even if that were true – and it isn’t – different models drive differently. Would I buy a pre-loved Porsche Cayman GT4 without taking one for a [non-literal] spin? I drove a low-mileage GT4 and passed. It may not have had the world’s hardest riding suspension, but I could call heads or tails when I drove over a quarter. And that was a good example. Lest we forget, owners use the GT4 as a track toy; low mileage doesn’t necessarily mean “gently used.”
All of which is my way of saying YOU bring a trailer. I’m never going to buy a car at auction. It’s not all about the lack of a test drive. It’s also about money.
Something – anything – is worth exactly how much someone will pay for it. No more, no less. As a commentator on this site pointed out, only one thing needs to happen for a car’s price to escalate beyond a used car dealer’s sticker price: two people competing to own it. A bidding war. Otherwise known as a pissing match.
Car auctions are to pissing matches what barrooms are to brawls. It’s not likely to happen, but that’s where it does, and when it does, it gets real ugly real fast. When two bidders got the hots for a beat-up high mileage NSX, the bidding went from $90k to $170k faster than the Senna-tuned Honda goes from zero to sixty. Worth it, you say? Not when you can buy a better car for less off auction.
Saying that, there are people who love a drunken scrap with folks they don’t know. Just as there are plenty of people who have so much money – and/or so little emotional intelligence – that “winning” a car auction is more important to them than paying a sensible price for their new old whip.
This could be you! I’d bet dollars to donuts you have a deep and meaningful relationship with your cars. You love them. The way they look, feel and sound. Their place in history. The not-so-simple pride of ownership. You don’t need me to tell you that love makes us so stupid things. Like . . . buying a used car you’ve never seen in the flesh, never personally or professionally inspected and never driven.
Not it. Especially when you throw in the hidden dangers of these public private sales.
“As is” sales are asking for trouble. Mechanical, electrical or body work trouble that can easily cost as much to put right as the “savings” made at auction. When I buy a used car from a large dealer, yes, I pay more than I would at auction (and pay to have the car independently inspected). But I know exactly what I’m buying. If something goes wrong that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, I can politely ask the dealer to put it right – or sick my lawyer on them.
There is an exception to my “no auction” policy: if I use a trustworthy consultant like Tony Rienzi. Tony has the inside knowledge. He can find the right vehicle, assess the risks, recommend a realistic price and even bid for you (protecting you from your own passion).
Reputable used car dealers, yes. Rienzi as my surrogate bidder, yes. Car auction on my own? I’d rather marry a Mormon.
Auction pissing matches hyperinflate cars without provenance. One recent auction on BaT (a Georgetown TX car), a ’67 Camaro with a 6.0 LS (LQ4) ended at $52K. A bit of a match ensued towards the last 15 minutes — and didn’t meet reserve. Imho, recent times have emboldened sellers to set ambitious reserves. My guess is that pre-equity-market crash, it’d have sold at a multiple of reserve. Reality checks are due now, and margins are being called.
For the dealers its a game of “Hot Potato” right now. (you better not get caught)
Should I dare to mention the Carrera GT auction @ $2M as a prime example? We all knew and hoped the CGT prices would escalate, but the not the way it actually did. Pre rona, these were leveling at 730-820k range realistically, the best that sellers were hoping to secure at the time was ~1.2M and that was fully dependent on spec, let alone “low-mileage example”. Nowadays seeing a 3.5k mi Black CGT – with missing luggage sets, manuals, and 1 key – available for 1.9M is way out of line for what people are actually willing to pay for. Auctions have done more good than bad imo, but the uneducated and/or piss match buyers really ruined it for the enthusiast who once intended to purchase and put some miles on it to enjoy.
There is also skullduggery involved. What Tony’s mob calls “soda machines” – fake bids.
Entertaining and informative article. I wholeheartedly agree!
Thanks for the comment!