My '88 GT5-S was at Russo & Steele Auctions last weekend. I had the best day/time slot...Saturday evening. The highest bid fetched on the auction block was 145k. It did not meet reserve so initially it was a "No sale". After the auction my car was taken to a "Post Auction" tent and there were a few people still showing interest in my car. The highest legit offer I got was 200k net to me. The buyer all in with commissions paid 220k.
I was hoping my car would fetch closer to 300k. In the classic/exotic car arena, there are only two factors that matter; Exposure and demand. My GT5-S had plenty of exposure. My car was the lead car in Russo & Steele's e-mail blast that goes out to thousands of their customers worldwide. My car was also selected to be in their exclusive catalog which also got distributed to thousands of their customers. Also, my car was sitting at the pre-auction six full days before it went through the auction block and I made sure I was there sitting next to the car for all six days to answer potential bidders questions. Also Russo & Steele auctions was only 15 minutes away from Barrett Jackson and I observed a lot of cross over customers. Lots and lots of people at the RS pre auction were going back and forth between Barrett Jackson pre-auction.
My car had plenty of exposure. It just didn't have much demand. Sometimes we confuse rarity with high price. Just because something is rare doesn't necessarily means its highly valuable. High demand plus rarity equals big money. Without high demand nothing else matters.
I had a beautiful GT5-S. But it did not have original paint. No original wheels either. Didn't have the original engine. It was a beautiful resto-mod GT5-S. Had it been bone stock original maybe it would have fetched more. Or maybe not. One thing for sure, the marketplace spoke. At this snapshot in time my car was worth 220k, no matter that I thought it was worth more and so many others told me it was worth more.