In an effort to stop the liquidation of the Saab Museum in action taken by Swedish bankruptcy courts, 500 bids were received and the top bid for the entire collection were awarded to a joint effort by Saab AB and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.

The collection consists of 123 cars from the first built 1946 Saab 92 to the last 2010 Saab production car. The Saab collection located in Trollhättan Sweden.

The Wallenberg family have been involved with Saab for the last 40 years of Saabs 66-year history.

Auction week headliner… 1953 Corvette Number 005 auctioned off at RM last week and sold for $445,500. This is an impressive sale, but considering the first 15 Corvettes were hand built prototypes, number 005 is one of 15 and a first year production car for Corvette.

We have appraised 2 of these prototype Corvettes and I would have expected $600,000+ based on past sales considering the popularity of the ’53 Corvette to collectors these days. This sale shows there are some deals to be had and with the economy coming back to life I wouldn’t expect to find too many good deals left as these premium cars start going on the auction block again after not seeing any for the last 3-years.

1 of 235 Raven Black V-code Mach 1 Fastbacks. This Mach 1 features a 3.91 Drag Pack rear-end, C-6 Automatic transmission, 428 CID Cobra Jet engine, Shaker hood, Competition suspension and chrome steel wheels. It’s slated to be sold at Mecum Kissimmee next Saturday January 28th at 7:15. This is a serious collector car with a documented history and Marti report to back it up. We have appraised similar cars for well over $80,000. These are highly collectible and will only increase in value.

Auction week in Scottsdale. One of the highlights of Scottsdale auction week is the sale to the highest bidder of a 1930 Duesenberg Model J, which sold for $2,640,000. this unique disappearing top, Supercharged 420 CID 8-cylinder engine convertible Duesenberg was expected to bring $1.6M to $2.2M, imagine it going for an extra $400k more than the estimated value. This is the type o sale that makes determining the appraised value of this type of car so difficult.

Chevrolet announces, “The 2013 model year will be historic for Corvette, marking its 60th Anniversary and the final year for the current ‘C6' generation”.

What better way to see out the old and welcome in the new, than to bring back the 427 Convertible.

The 60th anniversary edition package and the 427 will make their debut at the January 21’st Barrett- Jackson in Scottsdale and be available at Chevrolet Dealerships this summer.

Rosso Corsa is Ferrari Red and translated from Italian to English means “Race Red”. Rosso Corsa has been a trademark of all Italian race cars since the 1920’s and is the most popular color ordered from Ferrari.

In the early 1990’s 85% of all Ferrari’s were ordered in Rosso Corsa, currently less than half (45%) of the Ferraris produced are Red.

Ferrari Maranello comments that more buyers are choosing the two-tone paint schemes reminiscent of the Berlinetta Boxer.

“a few Lire more, but in red”.

All that trivial car knowledge you have collected over the years is valuable. Appraising cars isn’t difficult if you know what you’re looking at and understand what makes one car valuable and another not. I find that most folks that are either thinking of retirement or already retired still want to be challenged, but not wanting to be a corporate slave. Here are some reasons you may want to consider tapping into that automotive knowledge and being a small business owner in your retirement. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, and it won’t help you quit your day job overnight, but it is an effective way to generate a good bit of supplemental income.

1. Write-off those medical expenses. As a small business you can provide yourself with medical coverage that you most likely are already paying for. As a business expense medical expenses will offset income earned.
2. Retirement income. Get paid to do something you might already be doing; going to car shows, talking to people about their cars, hanging out car events and club meetings.
3. Buying Hot Rods will now be a business expense and not just hobby.
4. Get out of the house. Do you really want to hang out and watch Jerry Springer all day?

It depends on what you are trying to justify. If you need to restore your pride and for safety you probably can justify that, but if you think you are going to restore your classic car because its worth more now than it ever has been and you are going to make some money, you had better think twice.

Nearly all our clients that have spent $100,000 or more on a restoration started the process with maybe a paint job or some kind of upgrade and one thing led to another, over time all those invoices come in $5k here, $8k there and in a little over a year you do the math and figure out you have spent over $100k on the project and it’s not even done.

The wife asks you when that car is going to be done and how much you have spent on it, you tell her its almost done and you seriously understate what you have spent, because her next question is going to be how much can you sell it for.

Unless you have a very special situation and an extremely rare car, the chances that you can sell the car for as much as it cost to have a professional restoration performed is pretty slim. As a rule of thumb it’s not unreasonable for a restoration to cost 2-3 times the fair market value of the car.


Well how can all these folks be loosing money on these high end restorations? It’s pure emotion. In high school what would you have done to go on a date with the most popular girl? What would you spend to have the coolest gadget available? When an individual has a vehicle restored they are doing it for themselves and they have specific requirements the finished vehicle may take them back to a time when they were younger or when they first met their spouse r that popular car they could never afford but now could have that car they had always wanted. It’s not an investment of money, it’s an investment that satisfies their emotion.

So if you think you are going to restore your dads old car and make some money, you had better first get a written estimate of the restoration cost, then do the math. If you are going to restore that old barn find for sentimental reasons, you had better first get a written estimate of the restoration cost and make a decision if it’s going to be worth it to you to have it done.

We get a lot of requests to determine how much value has been lost due to a vehicle having an accident history. This type of appraisal is called Diminished Value and most people have no idea that it’s called that, but they understand the concept that they will not be able to sell there car in the future for what they could have had it not been in an accident.

Regardless of the repair quality a vehicle is still going to have an accident history that will be reported by Carfax and the owner is required to disclose that accident history to the new owner by law. So when a potential buyer is told of the accident history do you think they are going to be willing to pay top dollar or are they going to want to know more about the accident and how bad was it, then use that information to make you a low ball offer?

The facts of the matter are that if you have been in an accident, the vehicle was repaired and you try to sell the car, your not going to be able to sell it for as much as you could sell a car that had not been in an accident.

To determine how much value your vehicle has lost because of the accident damage, you will need to have the vehicle appraised by a professional appraisal company that will use industry acceptable standards to determine your loss.

Worthless Diminished Value Appraisals Article

Every vehicle has a unique identification number, modern cars have a 17-digit number that includes all kinds of information abut the vehicle while at the same time its unique to each vehicle. The VIN contains information about the country of origin, manufacture, engine, transmission, model year and a unique identifier for that vehicle.

VIN’s were first used in 1954, but prior to the VIN, cars were issued a not so unique engine number. Each manufacture created their own engine numbers and used that to identify that vehicle by the manufacturer and model. During this period there was no standard for VIN’s and even within the manufacturer there was no consistency.

In 1981 the US National Highway Safety Administration required all vehicles sold in the US to contain the standard 17-Character VIN system we use today.

It’s important to note that the current standard does not use the letters I, O or Q as these characters are easily confused with numbers.