Larry’s likes at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction

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Around the Classic Cars News office, we refer to this feature as a “Pick6.” It’s a not-so-veiled reference to my earlier career as a daily newspaper sports editor and the sports media’s use of “pick six” in referring to an interception that is returned for a touchdown at a football game.

But while we call it a Pick6, we don’t limit our selection of auction cars that catch our attention as we visit a sales venue to just six. We often share eight or 10 or even a dozen cars we like.

Monday morning, I walked among the 1,500 or so cars that comprise Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale docket at WestWorld of Scottsdale, Arizona, and was confronted by the challenge of doing a Pick6 that was closer to 60.

There’s a lot there to like, but here are some of my favorites:

1946 Kurtis Kraft custom midget racer
(Lot 377.1) Back when I was covering sports, my first exposure to auto racing was the local midget track in Joliet, Illinois, where Indy 500 drivers often raced when they had the weekend off. This 1946 Kurtis Kraft spent 28 years on tracks in the St. Louis area, initially with an Offy engine but now with a four-cylinder Ford.
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1962 Dodge Polara convertible
(Lot 442) I like early Plymouth Valiants and this Polara convertible stretches those same styling cues onto a larger platform, plus the top goes down at the push of a button. Oh, and instead of a “slant 6,” there’s a 361cid V8.
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1951 Ford Victoria
(Lot 678) This Vickie, from the first year of Ford’s new post-war hardtop design, caught my eye as I was finishing my lap of the Barrett-Jackson cars. Engine is a 239cid flathead V8 with all sorts of aftermarket parts.
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1939 Ford custom sedan delivery
(Lot 819.1) I’m not a fan of clones or tributes, but I’m still smiling after seeing this retro 7-Up delivery truck.

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1950 Packard Victoria custom convertible
(Lot 1123) I’ve written recently about learning that my father, who was not a car guy, owned two pre-war Packards. I like this post-war version, a resto-mod which may look stock but was restored over some chassis components from 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS and which also uses the Chevy’s LT1 small-block powertrain, as well as disc brakes.
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1960 Chevrolet Impala convertible
(Lot 1164) Several of my grandchildren are moving to Henderson, Nevada, and it would be great to have a classic convertible for the drive up there and for cruising the Strip and the Valley of Fire. This ’60 Chevy reportedly has a lot of legs left; it’s only been driven 33,500 miles since new.
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1922 Ford custom “Double Down”
(Lot 1361) Jet-Hot Coatings wanted a hot rod to showcase its products and turned to Fuller Hot Rod to turn the corporate dream into three-dimensional road-going reality. Unusual among hot rods, this one has all-wheel drive.
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1950 Ferrari 195 S Inter Superleggera
(Lot 1395) What’s not to like? V12 engine and an absolutely gorgeous body by Touring.
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1925 Renault 1400CV Tourer
(Lot 1399) This is a huge car, powered by an equally huge 9.2-liter six-cylinder engine. We tend to think of compact and rear-engined Dauphine economy cars from the ‘60s, but this was the French equivalent of a Packard or Cadillac or even a Rolls-Royce back in the 1920s. In the 1980s, the car was part of the Nethercutt collection and was driven on tours by J.B. Nethercutt.
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1958 Mercedes-Benz
(Lot 1400) This lovely two-toned, pontoon-fendered cabriolet is believed to be one of the last hand-finished cars by the German automaker, has had only three owners, the last one for 20 years, and has been driven only 72,600 miles since new.
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1940 Cadillac Series 62 custom coupe 'Sophia'
(Lot 1408) I fell in love with Sophia a couple of years ago at the SEMA Show. She’s the work of John D’Agostino, who found a rust-free California Caddy that had been in storage for 50 years and customized her into the automotive version of voluptuous Italian actress Sophia Loren.
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1962 Indy McGee/Carmen roadster
(Lot 1416.1) Back when I was a sports editor, I covered a lot of auto racing and knew Jim McGee as the Indy-winning chief mechanic for Patrick Racing. This McGee/Carmen roadster was McGee’s first Indy car, debuting at the Trenton, New Jersey, oval. It didn’t finish, but cars wrenched by McGee eventually won 84 times on the Indy circuit, including the famed 500 on more than one occasion.
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Larry Edsall
A former daily newspaper sports editor, Larry Edsall spent a dozen years as an editor at AutoWeek magazine before making the transition to writing for the web and becoming the author of more than 15 automotive books. In addition to being founding editor at ClassicCars.com, Larry has written for The New York Times and The Detroit News and was an adjunct honors professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

1 COMMENT

  1. Larry Edsall..Once all the auctions are over and done with, I would hope we may be able to get together and chat about opportunities available from here on out! I hope you will remember our conversation of last fall. Looking forward to hearing from you.
    Best Regards,
    Alan Poland @. 602-290-4799
    [email protected]

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