Believe it or not, the first hammer of the first sale at the first auction of 2014 falls sometime today, at Dave Rupp’s Fort Lauderdale Beach sale in Florida.

But as the auction action starts anew in a new year, it can be entertaining if not enlightening to take a quick look back at one interesting snapshot of 2013. That snapshot comes in the form of a delightful “Year at a Glance” chart put together by the folks at RM Auctions.

Note: This chart involves only those auctions organized by RM. Nonetheless, it offers a perspective on the classic car hobby and industry that’s noteworthy — and then some.

For example, if you parked nose to tail all of the 879 vehicles sold last year by RM — and those 879 vehicles include a 1932 Garwood boat that was 28 feet in length — they’d form a single line 2.5 miles long.

Of those 879 vehicles, 288 — nearly one out of three — sold for more than their pre-sale estimates.

Bidding on cars and automobilia at RM sales was done by 3,779 people from 52 countries, which makes it a good thing that RM auctioneer Max Girado not only speaks English but is fluent in French, Spanish and Italian as well.

By the way, Girado also is an RM car specialist, which means he not only knows about cars, but he drives them, and drives them passionately. Last year, RM staffers participated in a dozen classic car rallies.

To get to those rallies and to vintage races and to their various auctions last year, RM staffers flew more than 1.5 million miles.

Speaking of miles, the longest distance a car traveled to be auctioned by RM was 6,738 miles. Based on restrictions imposed by classic car insurers, we’re guessing that car was flown, not driven, from its garage to the auction venue.

What was the most popular color among the 879 vehicles sold last year by RM? Red.

But that probably comes as no surprise if you look at what appears to be a bar code in the lower lefthand corner of the chart and realize that those bars represent the sales for 2013 by marque (based on dollars, not number of vehicles). By far the brand generating the most dollars/euros/pounds was Ferrari, followed by Mercedes-Benz, Maserati, Duesenberg and Porsche.

Those brands comprised the top five. Next came Jaguar, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, Talbot-Lago and Shelby. Rounding out the top 20 were Packard, Cadillac, Ford, Bugatti, Delahaye, Chrysler, Chevrolet, McLaren, Lamborghini and — how’s this for a surprise — Toyota!

Who says Japanese cars aren’t emerging as collectible classics?

So, those are my reactions to the RM chart. What about it caught your eye? And who out there volunteers to produce a similar chart at the end of 2014 rounding up not just one auction company’s results but all the classic car auctions?

Though a sale, not an auction, we’re including this in a series of previews of January events.

When Tony Singer was a college student in Denver in the late 1960s, he went to the local Porsche dealership, not to buy but to look and to dream.

“You’re a young kid. They know you’re not buying.” Singer said of the dealership’s sales staff. “What do they do? They give you a poster.”

Singer put that poster on his wall, and a year after his graduation he was back at the dealership, this time buying a used Porsche 356.

“I started collecting thing related to Porsche,” Singer said. “I always kept my Porsche, but as I had other cars I’d collect things related to them, too, particularly posters.”

Singer’s poster collection grew, and grew some more, but always remained a hobby. While working as an artist and printer, he also restored and showed  cars (a Porsche 550 Spyder he restored is now part of Ralph Lauren’s collection).

Singer bought some of his posters at automobilia shows in Europe, events at which a variety of vendors sold various car-related collectibles. When he suggested to some British poster vendors they stage such a show in the U.S., they suggested Singer do it himself.

So he did, and thus was born Automobilia Monterey, held now for more than a dozen years in conjunction with those historic races and the Pebble Beach concours d’elegance. Automobilia Monterey has grown in to an event which annually features nearly four dozen vendors and attracts some 1500 customer/collectors.

“It’s only collectibles,” he said. “They don’t come for wine or food or pretty women or all the other stuff. They are people who know very precisely why they’re there, who have a pretty good idea of what they’re going to find, and it’s really become it’s own cool little event. It’s become a gathering of similarly minded people and has an energy that’s all its own.”

On January 16 and 17, Singer launches a second such showcase, Automobilia Scottsdale, from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. each day in the ballroom of the Radisson Ft. McDowell resort, where original — no reproductions allowed — posters, photographs, rally plates, badges, pins, mascots, hood ornaments, signs, scale models, literature, books, original art and other auto-related collectibles will be offered for sale by more than a dozen vendors.

“We have a great mix of people with a wide variety of offerings,” Singer said. “One has badges. One has mascots. One has books. When the buyer walks in, they have a broad palette of things to choose. They may be looking for one thing, but then they see other things.”

Singer said prices typically start in the $10 range. “Most automobile tends to be less than $100,” he said, adding, however, that there will be items priced at as much as $15,000.”

We’ve already shared some information on the MidAmerica/Mecum motorcycle auction taking place January 9-11 at south end of The Strip in Las Vegas, but that sale has a competitor on its opening day, Bonhams’ annual classic motorcycle sale at Bally’s Hotel & Casino.

Bonhams’ sale will include an Isle of Man winner and a BMW factory racer credited with changing American minds about Bimmer bikes.

The 1947 Vincent HRD Series B Rapide that won the 1950 Isle of Man Clubman TT beneath Alex Phillip will be up for bidding. Estimated to be worth as much as $150,000, after its big victory, the bike was uprated to full Black Lightning specifications — Phillip called it a “rocketship” — an was sold to British commando and war hero Lt. Colonel “Mad Jack” Churchill.

The 1972 Butler & Smith BMW F750 is one of two purpose-built, factory-supplied racing bikes sent to tuner Udo Geitl of Butler & Smith, the BMW motorcycle importers for the United States. Geitl’s tweaks produced stunningly faster bikes that raced in the 1973 Daytona 200 and helped to change the image of BMW motorcycles in the U.S. from “stuffy tourer” to sporting machine.

The F750s also were predecessors to the Butler & Smith BMW R90S model that Geitl readied and that Reg Pridmore rode to the first world Superbike championship.

The F750 up for bidding was ridden at Daytona by Kurt Leibmann while Pridmore rode its twin. Pre-auction estimated value is as much as $75,000.

“We are very pleased to have been selected to represent these historic motorcycles at auction,” said Nick Smith, motorcycle manager for Bonhams U.S. Motoring Division. “Both machines are quite significant for different reasons and both represent the ultimate in motorcycling: racing at its highest level.”

Also in the catalog for the sale are the Silverman Museum Racing Collection of Ducatis and the Pierce Family Museum Collection of Harley-Davidsons.

Another in a series of previews of classic car auctions in January.

When Dana Mecum staged his first classic car auction in Florida, it was held in conjunction with the annual Florida Corvette show at Cyprus Gardens.

“We started out with 40 cars in the parking lot behind the laundry at the Hilton Hotel,” said Mecum, whose Mecum Auctions returns to Florida in January, 2014 for an auction that will offer a quite few more than 40 cars.

“The auction doubled in size every year,” Mecum said, explaining that it wasn’t long before the original venue could provide no more than 250 places to park the auction cars.

“But we had consigned 400 cars so we had to move,” Mecum said.

Mecum moved from Cyprus Gardens to Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, a community known for hosting lots of visitors (Osceola Heritage Park is a 12-mile drive from Disney World).

Again, consignments doubled each year. Well, until the last couple of years, when the growth slowed, though for good reason. After all, there are only so many classic cars available for sale at any given time, and last year Mecum’s Kissimmee event offered up bidding on 2,500 of them.

“But 3,000 is our goal,” said Mecum, adding that consignments for the 2014 auction are running ahead of the pace they arrived for the 2013 event.

“That would be something to brag about,” he said of reaching his goal of 3,000 cars at a single auction.” That would be something our company can do and no other company has the infrastructure to put together and handle that many cars.”

To put the scope of Mecum’s Kissimmee event in perspective, that one auction offers about the same number of cars as all six sales taking place during the Arizona Auction Week.

“The whole industry has settled around Arizona,” Mecum said. “We sat down one day and said, ‘there’s a lot of cars east of the Mississippi, too’.”

Now, he added, Kissimmee “has become our flagship.”

But it’s not only the number of cars available at the Kissimmee auction that has doubled and then doubled again and again. Mecum recently signed a three-year contract with NBC and its Sports Group of channels to televise many of his company’s auctions, starting with Kissimmee.

“For more than 20 years, we lived with our main media partner being Hemmings, and it still is our primary print partner,” Mecum said. “But it has 250,000 subscriptions.

“We went from that to Discovery/Velocity [TV outlets]. When we started, there were  15-18 million households [with those channels available]. It has grown to be in the 35-40 million range.

“But now we’re moving to NBC Sports and moving from 35-40 million to 80-90 million. We’re doubling our exposure. It’s a very big deal.”

Mecum also is expanding his company’s exposure by adding new events. The inaugural sale at Harrisburg, Pa., will be July 24-26 and plans are being made for another new sale, this one in Seattle.

But first come the MidAmerica motorcycle sale Jan. 9-11 in Las Vegas (Mecum is buying the long-time motorcycle auction house from its founder) and the Kissimmee sale that runs from Jan. 17-26.

With nearly 3,000 cars available at Kissimmee, there figures to be something for everyone. Mecum grades cars from general to featured to stars to “main attraction.”

This year the big attractions at Kissimmee include a couple of Duesenbergs, a couple of L88 Corvettes, a Boss 429 Mustang and the auction superstar, “The “Real McCoy” Corvette.

Mecum says his Florida auction “started as a Corvette auction and our roots are very much Corvettes. Last year we had 700 Corvettes at Kissimmee.”

The Real McCoy car is a 1956 Chevrolet Corvette SR prototype that some will tell you is the car that kept the Corvette in production. Ford launched its two-seater, the Thunderbird, for 1955 and sold 16,000 of them while Chevy found buyers for only some 700 of its fiberglass-bodied roadsters.

Chevrolet engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov knew his pet project was in jeopardy, so he stuffed a special V8 engine under the hood and headed off to Daytona Beach, where, on the eve of General Motors’ big Motorama show in New York City, he set a two-way, flying-mile speed record. Duntov then worked with three-time Indy 500 winner Maury Rose and legendary mechanic Smokey Yunick to prep the car for the Sebring endurance race, in which John Fitch and Walt Hansgen drove to ninth overall and first in their production sports car class.

Chevrolet touted the car as “The Real McCoy” in an advertising campaign.

“The Real McCoy,” said Mecum. “This is the car that saved the brand.”

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The Antique Automobile Club of America Museum in Hershey, Pa., usually focuses on the preservation and restoration of veteran vehicles to original condition. Which is why the special exhibit opening this month is so unexpected.

“The Art of the Build: Rods & Kustoms”  goes on display Jan. 24 through April 27, and takes a hot rod run through the world of individualized custom cars, including a number of top award winners as well as some of the true oddities of the hobby. Usually, the AACA mourns the loss of original cars to build customs, but this time around, it celebrates the customs and the customizers.

Among the unique beauties  on display are some of the top contenders for the prestigious Ridler Award, given annually at the Detroit Autorama. The AACA show also focuses on some of the legends whose custom cars made everybody sit up and take notice, folks such as Boyd Coddington, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and George Barris, the “King of Kustomizers.”

“The ‘Art of the Build’ exhibit focuses on these individuals, and the rolling art they have created,” an AACA Museum news release says. “By treating each custom vehicle as a piece of sculpture, the Museum has planned this display as an art installation, celebrating each item for what it has become, not lamenting what it once was.”

For more information,  visit aacamuseum.org. 

Another in a series of previews of classic car auctions in January.

Bonhams is doing everything it can to make the third time the charm in selling classic cars at auction in Arizona.

“When people get our catalog they will see a quite severe upgrade in the quality of the cars we’re offering,” promised Jakob Greisen, motorcar specialist and head of business development for Bonhams motoring department.

Greisen said Bonhams set out on the new path last summer with its classic car auction at the Quail Lodge in Monterey, Calif.

“Our Quail auction went from $12 million in 2012 to just over $30 million in 2013, and with less cars,” said Greisen, who joined Bonhams last year from Gooding & Co.

The idea, he added, is “less but more,” as in fewer offerings, but offerings of high quality.

Bonhams, established in England in 1793, certainly is known for the quality of its auction offerings in Europe, where it recently handled the sale of the famed Ecurie Ecosse racing team collection and where, last summer, it sold the 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196R Grand Prix car for a world-record auction price of $29.65 million.

Not only will the quality of the cars be upgraded, Greisen said, but so will their presentation January 16 at the Westin Kierland resort in Scottsdale.

“We sat down and said, ‘you know what? It’s a very big marketplace and our share is not where it should be, and when it comes to the  handful of auction houses that can handle an important car, we’re not handling as many as we should be. We rethought our strategy and our business plan. We’ve been outgoing more and have reached out more to our clients. Especially in Scottsdale.

“It’s about offering the client something unusual, something they have to buy at auction, that they cannot find on eBay or Hemmings, something that [they realize presents] an opportunity.”

For example? Griesen offers two of them , one a pre-war car, one from the post-war period.

The pre-war car is a 1931 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 supercharged gran sport spider with bodywork by Zagato.

“The car has a fabulous history,” Griesen said. “It was bought new by a baron in France, a young playboy who raced at Le Mans and had airplanes and he had this great car.”

The young baron co-drove an Alfa 8C with Luigi Chinetti at Le Mans in 1933 and they finished second, trailing only another 8C co-driven by the legendary Tazio Nuvolari and Frenchman Raymond Sommer. In the 1930s, the baron sent his wife and son to Switzerland but he remained in France and joined the resistance movement.

He sold the Alfa 6C in 1935. Through several owners, the car remained in France in original condition until it was sold in 2007 at Monterey. The American collector who bought it there had it restored. He sold it three years later. The consignor for the Scottsdale auction also had it restored, by Steve Babinsky of American Restorations.

Since then, still with its original engine and bodywork, it has been shown at the Pebble Beach and Amelia Island concours. In 2013, the car participated in the Mille Miglia and then took part in the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este.

The car’s pre-auction estimate is $2.4 million to $2.7 million.

Griesen’s post-war example of Bonhams boost in quality is “the tailor’s car,” a 1951 Ferrari 212 Export Berlinetta with bodywork by Touring.

“The car has had the same ownership since 1969 and is one of four export 212s that had Touring superleggera coachwork,” Griesen said

The car, he added, was one of the first Ferraris produced, purchased new by Augusto Caraceni, a racing driver and professional tailor with clients that included Enzo Ferrari, Gianni Agnelli, Aristotle Onasissis, Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant.

The car came to the United States in the early 1960s and the consignor has owned it since 1969. Its restoration, by several Ferrari experts, began in 2008.

Since it’s restoration, Griesen said, “it has never been shown, but it is a car you could take to Pebble Beach or Cavallino Classic and the Mille Miglia.”

The pre-auction estimate is $3-$4 million.

While the Alfa and Ferrari may be two of the most outstanding examples of Bonhams’ new push, Griesen noted that the catalog ranges from a 1910 Simplex 50HP Toy Tonneau to a 2010 Ferrari 599XX. In between those dates and cars are many others, including two Mercedes-Benz 300SLs, a gulling and a roadster; a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 500K sports phaeton; a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB/6C; a 1954 Bentley R-type Continental fastback; and a 1950 Delahaye originally displayed at the Paris auto salon.

And it’s not just the quality of the cars offered that has been upgraded, Griesen said. So has the quality of the automobila offerings, which include such unique items as the tweed jacket worn by Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt.

Photos courtesy of Bonhams