Keith McCormick was little more than a youngster back in his native England when he began restoring cars at his parents’ home.

“When I got married, we married young and now its 48 years later,” he said of his marriage to Delsey. “We had zero money. The first car we restored as a couple was a Ford Thames van. We paid five pounds for it. We sold it for 25 pounds. There was no looking back from there.”

Well, except the day the police arrived.

“I was selling cars from my home,” McCormick said. “The police posted a notice about misuse of the premise, so we rented a little gas-station forecourt and sold three cars the first weekend.”

Eventually, the McCormicks’ owned five car dealerships, which they sold so they could move to Palm Springs, Calif., in 1981, where they planned to enjoy an early retirement.

But the cost of living in California consumed their savings. McCormick bought a gas station and started selling cars again. He also helped launch the Palm Springs vintage races, which brought motorsports celebrities Stirling Moss, Phil Hill, Dan Gurney and Bob Bondurant to town.

“That gave me name recognition so I could do a car auction,” McCormick said.

Not only did he have name recognition, but he was encouraged by part-time Palm Springs resident and television star Telly Savalas.

[pullquote]

We have created a village-type auction atmosphere here,”

— Keith McCormick

 

[/pullquote]McCormick staged his first classic car auction in 1985. February 21-22, he’ll stage his 56th. The location is The Spa Resort Casino in downtown Palm Springs.

McCormick and his family — Delsey, their son Jason and daughter-in-law Julie —  a few employees that have sort of become family not only do auctions twice a year in Palm Springs, but also have a classic car dealership.

“Palm Springs has a village-type downtown and we have created a village-type auction atmosphere here,” McCormick said. “We get 20,000 people to the events and we know most of them and what they bought and when they bought it.”

McCormick said he has no interest in doing auctions in other locations. “I’m just a homebody with a wife, kids and grandkids. Everybody gets involved in the business. And we’ve made money along the way. But money is not the big factor in life. Family and being happy is more important.”

McCormick’s auctions feature 540 cars — that’s all there’s room for at the casino — but each event actually can claim closer to 600 sales. That’s because cars that arrive early go to the consignment showroom, where pre-auction sales often take place, thereby opening room for additional cars at the actual auction.

Speaking of the cars available at the auction, McCormick said they’ll range from MGBs to one of the 17 Vectors (see photo) .

“They’ve sold from $400,000 to $1 million,” he said of the Vector, which he added was the first car to reach 242 miles per  hour on the Salt Flats at Bonneville. “Our’s has done 2,000 miles and belongs to a Hollywood-type whose name we cannot divulge.”

To see the online auction catalog, visit www.classic-carauction.com.

Classic car enthusiasts know the name Bugatti from the amazing racing and road cars created by Ettore Bugatti and his son, Jean. But did you know that the Bugattis were a family with artistic skills through several generations, creating everything from paintings to sculptures, furniture to cars, and even an ahead-of-its-time airplane?

On March 25, the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, Calif., opens an exhibition, “Art of Bugatti,” that will feature the work not only of Ettore and Jean, but of  Ettore’s father, Carlo, a famous 19th century furniture designer, and of Ettore’s brother, Rembrandt, who was known for his paintings, especially of animals.

In addition to creating some of the world’s fastest racing cars, Ettore Bugatti and Belgian engineer Louis dMonge designed an amazingly technologically advanced airplane in the late 1930s. Their 100P, the prototype was built between 1937 and 1940, had forward-pitched wings, a “zero-drag” cooling system and even “computer-directed” analog flight controls, all pre-dating the development of the Allied forces’ best World War II fighters.

Power came from a pair of 450-horsepower engines. The 100P could reach speeds of 500 miles per hour, a speed previously achieved only with twice the horsepower. The aircraft also was compact, with a wingspan of less than 27 feet and an overall length of less than 25 1/2 feet.

Work on the plane halted in June, 1940, and the 100P was taken from Paris at night and hidden in a barn to prevent its discovery by the German military. The original prototype survived the war, but was not in good enough condition to fly.

In 2009, retired U.S. fighter pilot Scotty Wilson, engineer John Lawson and business development specialist Simon Birney began work under the banner of Le Reve Bleu (The Blue Dream) to recreate the airplane using the same plans (at least those that survived), materials and processes used by Bugatti and de Monge.

The completed aircraft will be shown for the first time at the Mullin as part of the Art of Bugatti exhibition.

[pullquote]

This incredible piece of engineering and design will receive the broad recognition it deserves, 77 years later.”

— Scotty Wilson

 

[/pullquote]“We’ve searched for years to gather the best examples of the Bugatti family’s work and couldn’t be more thrilled to host the 100P at our museum,” Peter Mullin, museum founder, said in a news release.“Bugatti has always been known for their remarkable automobiles, but the 100P is one of the missing pieces that truly shows the breadth and depth of the family’s work.”

Mullin’s museum and his personal car collection focus on Art Deco designs. His 1934 Voisin C-25 Aerodyne won best-in-show honors at Pebble Beach in 2011.

“For the first time, this incredible piece of engineering and design will receive the broad recognition it deserves, 77 years later,” said Wilson.

Plans call for the recreated 100P to make its first flight after its display at the museum.

The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance has taken its place as one of the world’s great concours events, a result of Florida’s balmy winter weather, a gorgeous venue and an always-spectacular selection of 300 vintage and exotic automobiles.

As well as showcasing the array of rare cars on Sunday, March 9, on the 10th and 18th fairways of The Golf Club of Amelia Island at The Ritz-Carlton, the 2014 edition will be highlighted by a number of special features during the two days leading up to the main event.

Two motorsports seminars will include some of the greatest names in racing giving participants a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the team efforts that went into the victories.

[pullquote]

The Great Offy Drivers Seminar is an insider’s look at a storied period in American championship racing.”

– Bill Warner[/pullquote]

The Great Offy Drivers Seminar features a celebration of Offenhauser-powered race cars Friday, March 7, at 3 p.m., with an all-star panel of Johnny Rutherford, Parnelli Jones, and Al and Bobby Unser. Each of the drivers raced cars powered by the legendary Offenhauser engines, and they drove them to a combined five Indianapolis 500 victories as well as to 35 additional racing victories.

They will be joined by sometimes Offy racer David Hobbs and Louis “Sonny” Meyer Jr., the son of the co-founder of Meyer & Drake Engineering where Offenhauser racing engines were built after World War II. As well as powering Indy and champ car racers, Offy engines provided the competitive edge in midget racers, racing powerboats and sports cars, winning 33 American national championships across 41 seasons of competition.

“The Great Offy Drivers Seminar is an insider’s look at a storied period in American championship racing from depression-era American track racing through the end of the seventies,” said Bill Warner, founder and chairman of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.

The Merchants of Speed seminar, which will be offered Saturday, March 8, starting at 10:30 a.m., explores the hidden world of motorsports management and the raw business end of racing and features some of the men who helped forge American motorsports as we know it today.

“The Merchants of Speed will be a fast-paced, 90-minute ‘MBA-quality’ seminar about the inside business of motorsport, something that has not been offered to the public until now,” Warner said.

The Merchants of Speed seminar features:

• Ray Evernham, who will explain the creation and operation of a championship NASCAR team;
• Alwin Springer, who managed Porsche Motorsport North America from the days of the mighty Porsche 917/10 and 917/30 Can-Am turbos in the 1970s;
• John Mecom, who ran Corvette’s racing program while General Motors disavowed any motorsport involvement;
• Bobby Rahal, the Indy 500 winner and team owner, who will speak on the challenges of managing his son’s Indy career while running two racing teams;
• Tyler Alexander, who will discuss McLaren Cars, the sole marque to win the Formula 1 World Championship, the Indy 500, the Can-Am championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans;
• Group 44’s Bob Tullius, who will explore the complex mission of transforming a championship-winning national club-racing program into an international championship sports car racing team.

Both seminars will be held in the Talbot Ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton. Admission is $30 for each event. To order tickets, visit www.ameliaconcours.org.

Other events happening during the Amelia Island weekend include a concours vehicle road tour Friday morning, automotive art shows, manufacturer test drives, vendors and receptions.

Two major collector-car auctions will be held prior to the concours: Gooding & Company on March 7 at the Omni Amelia Island Plantation, and RM Auctions, which has its sale March 8 in the Grand Ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Resort. For auction information and the lists of cars being offered, see www.goodingco.com and www.rmauctions.com.

 

For 10 or maybe it’s been a dozen years, Jim Pixley Jr. has driven to Amelia Island from his home in Atlanta to attend the annual concours d’elegance, the annual gathering of gorgeous classic cars in an island setting on Florida’s northeastern coast. Afterward, he drives home and then searches the newsstand for a magazine that shows the same sort of cars he’s just seen.

“I never could find anything,” he said.

“I like magazines and I like classic cars,” Pixley added. “I decide to put them together.”

Pixley has been in the magazine business, primarily as an art director, though most recently as assistant managing editor for Veranda, a magazine focused on interior design and which Pixley describes as sort of a southern version of Architectural Digest.

Pixley calls his magazine Mascot and has just published its premier issue.

The magazine spans 96 pages, plus almost cardboard-thick front and back covers. Between those covers are just five articles.

The format, Pixley explains, is to open the magazine with a feature on a specific concours, or on a single class at that concours. In the case of the premier edition, there are 18 pages entitled, “A Day with the Legendary Duesenbergs.”

The rest of the Mascot is given over to coverage of four cars. For the premier edition, they are “The Fire Chief’s Super Eight Sport Phaeton,” “The Mysterious Parisian Delahaye 135M,” “Frank Spring Teaches Hudson’s Jet Italian,” and “The Unexpected Double Life of Rolls-Royce EX44.”

The Fire Chief and Parisian Delahaye each get 18 pages, the Hudson 16 and the Rolls 20.

If he receives enough positive response, Pixley wants to produce Mascot on a quarterly basis. The premier issue is priced at $14.99 (you can buy a copy through the www.mascotmagazine.com website). Pixley knows his cover price is expensive,  and he wants to reduce it as volume increases and as advertising arrives.

Though not too much advertising, he said. What he wants is to showcase the cars, and with as many as 20 pages devoted to each vehicle.

His idea is to present the cars to readers as if they were touring a fine home and its artistic and architectural details, telling the story in words but emphasizing photos that make you feel as if you are in the home — or the car.

And there are no studio photos, he said. “I don’t want studio shots. I want to recreate what you see when you go to a show. I want the reader to experience walking around the car in daylight. Studio shots are beautiful, but that’s just not what this is. I want the reader to feel like they’re with the car.”

Like so many boys, Pixley grew up drawing pictures of cars and dreaming of becoming a car designer. He studied graphic design and fine art at the University of Georgia, went into advertising and then into magazines.

“I want to present these cars as art and to share their beauty with people,” he said. “Every story is different because every car is different.”

Pixley said he chose Mascot as the name for his magazine because “mascots were hood ornaments that went on these rare and unusual cars, and I felt it captured the spirit of the custom coach-built automobile.”

Like the restoration or preservation of a classic car, Pixley said the creation of his magazine has been a “labor of love that I’ve started, and we’ll see where it leads.”

 

For the third year in succession, Artcurial Motorcars has established a record for the largest classic car auction held in France with its two-day sale during Retromobile, which posted $33.78 million in business.

“We are absolutely delighted with the results of this year’s Retromobile sale,” said Matthieu Lamoure, managing director of Artcurial Motorcars. “Interest was strong across the full range of motor cars on offer and the atmosphere in the sales room was fantastic. It was wonderful to present these cars to a room buzzing with excitement and packed with so many true enthusiasts.

“The results speak for themselves and our close-knit team, with a shared passion for collectors’ cars, gives Artcurial Motorcars a very special character.

“Selling the Ferrari 166MM the following day the day after the car crossed the block) has been the icing on the cake!”

For the first time, Artcurial’s Retromobile auction spanned two days, the second called “Solo Alfa” and devoted to 44 Alfa Romeos.

The 166MM highlighted by Lamoure is a 1953 166MM originally built with a Vignale body, but that was switched out in 1954 for one-off Oblin coachwork. The car, with an extensive racing history highlighted by victory in the Liege-Rome-Liege road race in 1953 and a runner-up finish in the Grand Prix at Spa in 1955, was restored to its appearance at the 1955 Brussels Motor Show.

The Ferrari didn’t quite reach its reserve price in bidding during its appearance on the block. However, consignor and bidder agreed to a price — $3.44 million — the following day, making the 166MM the top sale of the Artcurial auction and the second most costly car (after a 1955 Jaguar D-type at RM) during any of the three auctions during Retromobile, Europe’s mid-winter celebration of classic cars.

From the mid-1970s until 2001, Artcurial was an art gallery that was part of the L’Oreal (cosmetics) group’s holdings. After the gallery closed, catalog publisher Nicholas Orlowski, with investment from French aircraft and technology company Dassault, bought the gallery and with auctioneers Francis Briest, Herve Poulain and Remy Le Fur, turned it into an auction company selling not only art but objects from wine to watches and from comic strips to classic cars. In 2002, Artcurial moved into the Hotel Marcel Dassault, just off the famed Champs Elysses.

Combined with the RM and Bonhams auctions earlier in the week, the Artcurial sale boosted the Retromobile totals to more than $80.5 million.

The top sale completed on the block at Artcurial was $3.44 million for a 1931 Bentley 8-litre Sportsman coupe with coachwork by Gurney-Nutting. Talk about a long run of awards, the car won the best coachwork trophy from the Royal Auto Club in 1932 and also best-of-show at the Louis Vuitt0n concours in 1999.

In addition to the top-10 sales, all of which exceeded $1 million, highlights of the auction included the sales of:

• An unrestored 1937 Delahaye 135 Coupe des Alpes cabriolet with Chapron coachwork ($128,888) that had been owned by the same family since 1961;
• A 1962 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud Mulliner-bodied cabriolet ($386,065) formerly owned by French film star Brigitte Bardot;
• A black-with-yellow-flames 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air coupe ($65,953) formerly owned by Ringo Starr;
• One of seven 1975 Citroen SM Mylord convertibles by Chapron ($739,958);
• A barn-found 1941 Pierre Faure electric car ($69,170, which was more than double its pre-auction estimate);
• A collection of archival material from acclaimed car designer Tom Tjaarda ($17,465).

Top-1o sales | Artcurial Paris (prices include commission)

1. 1953 Ferrari 166MM by Oblin, $3,441,225
2. 1931 Bentley 8-litre Sportsman coupe by Gurney-Nutting, $2,955,945
3. 1924 Isotta-Fraschini Tipo 8A cabriolet by Ramseier, $1,737,076
4. 1934 Hispano-Suiza J12 Type 68 by Vanvooren, $1,520,940
5. 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing, $1,241,540
6. 1965 Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ coupe, $1,289,366
7. 1933 Delage D8 S cabriolet by Pourtout, $1,281,647
8. 1929 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS, $1,213,719
9. 1969 Lamborghini Miura S, $1,088,669
10. 1969 Maserati Ghibli Spyder 4.9-litre, $1,011,477

 

 

There’s a generational shift taking place in the classic car marketplace.

“If you drove into high school parking lots in the late ’70s and ’80s and into the early ’90s, everyone was into four-wheel (4×4) stuff and what were called ‘rice rockets’,” said Richard Sevenoaks, president of Leake Auction Company and, for our purposes, our lecturer for what we’ll call the Classic Car Marketplace 101.

Once upon a time, Sevenoaks reminded, classic cars were only those produced prior to World War II.

“It wasn’t until the early ‘80s that we start seeing the advent of the post-war car,” he said. “Prior to that, cars of the ’60s and ’70s were just used cars.

[pullquote]

We’re seeing guys who were in high school in the ’70s and ’80s.”

— Richard Sevenoaks

 

[/pullquote]“But suddenly we start seeing young folks — at least they… well, we were young then — who remembered the ’68 Shelby or the Firebird that Joe had in high school and who came to auctions and say, ‘that’s what I’m going to get’.

“Now,” Sevenoaks added, “we’re seeing guys who were in high school in the ’70s and ’80s.”

And, he said, it’s not just at auctions such as his.

“Go to a cars and coffee. We had a booth at cars and coffee in Dallas and in Oklahoma City last weekend. The demographics are 18 to 34 years of age. It’s amazing how young the folks are.

“There’s a whole new generation coming that we in the auction business have to capture. We just approved a budget for digital advertising in the social media world that skews young.”

Sevenoaks compared the auction companies’ position to that of a surfer riding big waves.

“All the auctions, ours included, have had record years,” he said. “We are riding the proverbial wave.

“But you paddle out, ride the big one, but then you have to paddle back out and hope you can ride the next one. You’re always looking over your shoulder for the next big set coming in.”

Fortunately for the auction companies, it doesn’t look as though they’ll have to wait very long for the next big wave to arrive.

And it’s not only happening among car collectors, Sevenoaks added. His family-owned company is entering its third generation as well. His father-in-law, Jim Leake, founded the auction company (officially in 1972, though he’d held a couple of stand-alone sales starting as early as 1964).

Sevenoaks and his wife, Leake’s daughter, Nancy, have been in charge since 1989. Now their children and children-in-law are taking on important roles — and bringing along their friends.

Friends who remember fondly those 4x4s, those hot imports, the now-classic pickup trucks and those Smokey and the Bandit Pontiac Trans Ams they couldn’t have back when they were in high school.

But the surge of new and younger classic car customers isn’t the only wave Leake auctions is riding at the moment.

Leake opens its 2014 auction calendar February 21-22 at Oklahoma City and then goes to Dallas for a sale April 25-26.

“Because of the oil economy, Oklahoma City is a boom town,” Sevenoaks said. “We go through these cycles every 15-20 years in Oklahoma and Texas. Oklahoma City has a new 60-story tower (building) in downtown, and the Thunder basketball team is going great. Dallas is another boom town because of the oil economy. We’ve done an auction there in the fall and we’ve added another and we’ll do two there for the foreseeable future.”

Leake’s Oklahoma City auction has grown so much it now has cars in three buildings at the OKC fairgrounds. But that will change, Sevenoaks said.

“At the end of this year, they’re knocking down one of the three buildings we use and building a new 250,000-square-foot building. That will allow us to put all the cars in one building instead of three. That will be a big plus for us.”

In the meantime, and to move 500 cars across the block in two days, Leake will have two lanes selling at the same time both days of its Oklahoma City auction.

“We’re doing that instead of having to start on Thursday or to take only 30 seconds per car. We want to take our time and give every car a fair shot at getting sold.”

[pullquote]

It’s a really big dog in the Model T world.”

— Richard Sevenoaks

 

[/pullquote]Among those cars are a rare 1921 Mercury Speedster, a 1958 Mercedes-Benz 190 SL, several 1950s-late-1970s pickup trucks, a “good selection” of customs and street rods and, for those of a certain age, a ’78 Trans-Am and a 1977 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser.

Sevenoaks said that when Leake began advertising the ’21 Mercury, “we started getting telephone calls from people asking us if we knew what we had. The Horseless Carriage people were calling. The car is built on a Model T chassis but went to the Mercury factory to have a special Mercury body that made it a Speedster. There are documents and it’s a really big dog in the Model T world.”

Sevenoaks said every classic car collector in Oklahoma and Texas wants a classic pickup truck. “There’s a lot of interest right now in 1970-73 Chevy C10s,” he said.

Two other highly modified vehicles at the auction deserve some special mention, he said: a 1935 Ford Radical show truck and the 1940 Ford “Imagination” custom show truck with a supercharged 455-cid V8 engine mounted not under the hood but in the pickup bed.

 

 

The final four years of the Pontiac Firebird also marked the last gasp of the classic muscle-car era that started in the 1960s. Like its corporate cousin of Chevy Camaro, the Firebird rode the ups and downs of the horsepower wars with boundless enthusiasm.

The last of the fourth generation of Firebirds that were introduced in 1993, the 1998 models received an expressive front-end restyling and honeycomb taillights that continued through the end of the line. A bit over the top for some, but spot on for others.

The 1998-2002 Firebirds managed to up the ante in performance despite strangling environmental restrictions and a young driving public whose attention was turning elsewhere. Formula and Trans Am models were treated to the latest Corvette LS1 small-block V8 along with an aluminum driveshaft and dual-piston front-brake calipers.

In standard trim, the V8 package cranked out 310 horsepower and 340 pound-feet of torque. But those in the know ordered their Firebirds with the high-performance WS6 Ram Air option that boosted horsepower to 325 and torque to 350 pound-feet. Plus, it added the most audacious quartet of hood scoops ever seen on a production car

In glossy black and with its massive rear spoiler that looked like the turned-up collar of an automotive Dracula, they have a bulging presence that’s hard to ignore.

The Trans Am WS6 cars from 1998-2002 already have shown strength at collector-car auctions, and their values should rise as overall interest in Detroit muscle comes roaring back after the market collapse of 2008. Witness the recent gains of Trans Ams from the “Smokey and the Bandit” days.

Non-WS6 Firebirds from the final years have languished, most becoming just used-up old cars or falling prey to extreme customizing efforts. In great original condition, they should see some upside in the future. Those equipped with the Hurst-shifter six-speed manuals are favored over the automatic versions.

A 205-horsepower V6 was also available for lesser Firebirds, but those values are expected to lag accordingly.

The last hurrah for the Pontiac Firebird was the 2002 Collector Edition Trans Am – known as CETA to their fans – with all of the coupes and convertibles equipped with the WS6 package and painted an aggressive shade of bright yellow. A relatively toned-down rendition of the emblematic “screaming chicken” motif from earlier years flows over the hood and onto the flanks. These attention grabbers have done fairly well at auction, with sales reaching the mid-30s at Barrett-Jackson sales.

For the final 2002 model year, all WS6-equipped Firebirds were produced in fairly high numbers, which does affect their values. Many of them were squirreled away with low miles by those expecting a big return in the future for the last-year performance Firebirds.

In terms of rarity, only a limited number of WS6 coupes and convertibles – something in the order of around 250 – were produced during the 1998 model year, and these are becoming noticed by collectors.