The “What Would You Rather Have?” Game
Hi Friends!
It’s certainly been a wild 24 hours in the collector car market. As we all know, Mecum Auctions is currently closing out their monster Kissimmee, Florida auction. Featured among the literal thousands of cars in their catalog was a number of fascinating Ferrari features, including the Bianco 250 GTO and the Bachman Ferrari Collection. Offered at no reserve, The Bachman collection featured 46 often somewhat strangely optioned Ferraris from multiple generations (and two Alfa Romeos too!) and to say that the results were shocking would be somewhat of an understatement. The whole world immediately took notice.
Of that collection, one car in particular really got the folks buzzing. Just one of 400 originally produced and one of 11 US designated Giallo Yellow examples, the collections undeniable biggest star was a 649-mile 2003 Ferrari Enzo – a car owned from new by the Bachmans, which hammered for an alarming $17,875,000.
Frequently selling in the $3 million to $5 million range, there’s no doubt that these are expensive, exclusive, impressive cars that should demand a premium, but you need to stop and think about what else would be available in this price range and ask yourself what would you rather have? I mean realistically, for this money, you’re looking at a 250 GT California Spider short wheelbase, closed headlight car and that’s real-deal standard bearer territory.
This “what would you rather have?” was the question I presented to folks online last night, as well as while I was walking around the lawn of the fantastic Arizona Concours d’Elegance this afternoon. While I pretty universally got the same answer from everyone, virtually everyone also understood how this car did this well and I heard a lot of the same reasoning too.
- It’s one of 11 examples in this color.
- It’s a one-owner car.
- It comes from one of the best Ferrari collections in the world.
- It’s a 649-mile example.
If you really think about it, this lines up pretty well with what a Cal Spider also is. Although, significantly more Enzos were produced overall (400 versus 106 Cal Spiders of all variants), when you break it down to options, it’s in a similar ballpark. Now imagine what a single owner Cal Spider with 649 original miles, with options and in a color in which less than 3% of its siblings were produced would do? Gooding somewhat did this in Monterey last year and the premium was definitely real.
As I stated in this newsletter a couple of months ago regarding the Ferrari 360, I think we’re starting to get to a point in history where we’re realizing how special the early 2000s were for the prancing pony. Certainly, production numbers were high on most of the representatives that you normally see out and about from this era, but on the flip, there was also a lot of limited run cars that were also made that check a ton of boxes for collectors and are really fun to coexist with to boot. Are we going to see every car from this era explode the same way? Probably not. However, special cars that come from special eras have routinely proven to ring the bell at auction and it’s hard to think that this would be any kind of exception.
This goes beyond just Ferrari’s as well. If you think about the Mopar craze that happened in the early 2000s, almost all of that was centered around cars that nobody really wanted when they were new, were largely equipped with questionable options, that were shown in garish colors and people lost their minds for those cars. Let’s be honest here, a lot of the cars that were in the Bachman collection fit this mold pretty well. This said, the same things that made those cars raise eyebrows in period are also the same reasons that they’re desirable today. These were not the standard Rosso/Tan examples that everyone else ordered and they pushed the program during that time into becoming what it largely is today. Rarity, history, desirability. That’s your trifecta and the cars from this collection had all three.
Another point routinely brought up by people this afternoon in particular was similarities seen between what happened yesterday and what we were witnessing in 2013. Is it possible that we could be looking at another Ferrari boom? It’s certainly likely. There’s great cars, lots of options, and that part of the market seems to be pretty confident right now. Again, I go back to overall production numbers and the general physical characteristics that exist on 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s Enzo cars and for me it just doesn’t line up. As much as I do like a lot of Ferraris from the early 2000s (I absolutely love 550s. Some of my favorite cars in the world) they just don’t demonstrate pure artistry in the same way and for me they aren’t the same. Will the rest of the market agree with me? I suspect no. That time is slowing and this time is now and that’s how these markets work.
It’s all about the desires of the people whose hands are on the paddles and that’s why auctions drive this space and why passionate people bid so passionately on things that they are passionate about. This appears to be the direction that those people are moving.
We got a big week of auctions upcoming here in Arizona this week and Paris the following, so we’ll see if that river continues to trickle. It could be an isolated incident surrounding a particular group of special cars or it could be a market moment. We will know soon…..
PS for the record, I’m team California Spider all the way.
That’s it for this week……
Darin Roberge