Gullwing: Original and Restored

[mdsalemi]

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/01/09/unrestored-or-pristine-a-tale-of-two-mercedes-benz-gullwings-to-play-out-at-auction/?refer=news

[Jonny B]

This will be MOST interesting to see what happens when they go under the hammer. Original is good, if the original is worth preserving, that would be sort of a hard sell on the unrestored car. Still the market will speak.

[mdsalemi]

...and a Hagerty post today suggested that collector car prices are very high, we may see a "price correction" in 2014. Stay tuned, I guess!

While some may call the unrestored car a survivor, that interior looks very rough. Sheepskins, anyone? 

[garymand]

It looks like it was out in the sun a lot in its early years, too bad.  The interior doesn't scare me, it what happened to the engine and drive train while stored.  The body looks great, Viva SoCal.

[KevinC]

The event next weekend will be webcast on www.goodingco.com

[Jonny B]

Thought I would post this to the original string. Boy did the market speak. The unrestored car went for just shy of 1.9 mil (with the premium included) and the concours level, one family for a bunch of years car went for about 1.4!!? I know the current market for originality but...... find this one really hard to understand. Also looked through some of the other prices, and not just on Pagoda or MB, some, how shall we say, interesting results. 1989 560 SL for 52.8K! The copy stated low mileage original, etc. Now what do you do with, sell it to someone else, and let the chain continue?

[GGR]

As we say, cars are original only once. If originality is what makes a cars value, then it is understandable that unrestored cars fetch better money. We may see a sub category of orininal cars with time wraps fetching most, then prices going down depending on mileage and condition. It will be interesting to see where prices meet between unrestored cars and restored ones, depending on condition of the unrestored cars and the quality of the restoration. This is bad news for restorers and for owners who spent fortunes restoring their cars. A new skill may emerge which is to repair and partly restore with in built patina so that it does not show or destract from the rest of the cars condition. Bugatti enthousiasts have been doing this for decades.

[mdsalemi]

I was going to post yesterday about how auctions provide very interesting and sometimes distorted results…while often they are what the market will bear, they are merely a point in time. A 560SL for $52K? That is along the lines of "you've got to be kidding". The R107s were made for 19 years, and over 37,000 560SLs were built, not all that long ago. So, no matter how pristine an example you'll find, surely there's another one better. But that's an auction for you. I don't know the specifics and I'm not sure I want to!

GGR, the Hollywood illusion of patina will only be more prevalent as time goes on, it's not limited at all to Bugatti. "Distressed" restorations will be done, if that's what the market is buying…

When matched numbers on muscle cars are valued so highly all manner of outright fabrication if not forgery is done in the name of the almighty dollar.

What I do know is this…the auction houses are doing very very well, and plying at least a little of their profit into more booze! 

[Rolf-Dieter ✝︎]

I watched most of the BJ Scottsdale Auction, I tend to agree with the comentators the cars will sell for what the people are willing to pay. I for one would never ever get into a bidding match at an Auction.

Here is a site (translated from German to English on Google) showiong more 300SL's that have fetched high dollar figures.

To the link ----> http://translate.google.ca/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2F300sl.org&act=url