On February 6-8, RM Collector Cars held an auction in Ft., Lauderdale that had total sales of $11 million (USD).

The Bonhams’ Retromobile auction, also held in early February, over in Paris, France, saw an unrestored Bugatti Type 57S Atalante coupe – a true barn find – sell for an astounding $4.4 million. A 1911 Pratt-Elkhart roadster, one of five American cars at that same auction, sold for $59,340.

Are collectible cars that were once bought by retired contractors who wanted a 1967 Plymouth Road-Runner down in value? Yes, they are – especially “muscle cars,” that have no documentation and were “clones” or “replicas” or “tribute cars.”

Silver Auctions, long known as the collector car auction company for the working man (or woman), took in $3.2 million less at its January/Arizona auction, than it did in 2008; and sold just 45 percent of the offerings. But there was a notable exception to the rule: a 1973 Plymouth Scamp, originally equipped with a Slant-Six, that sold for $19,440 (including 8 percent buyer’s fee), thanks to a 340 cubic-inch engine, topped by Six-Pak carburetion (three, two barrel carbs) and a particularly well done restoration.

Collector cars with providence are going to hold up, for the same reasons that people with money are buying gold or Euros.

So let’s stop using this forum to bash President Obama. What was the alternative? Does anyone really feel that a President McCain would have been able to stem the financial carnage now taking place? Would a vice president Palin have been able to fly to Wall Street, or the pits of the Chicago Mercantile and assuaged fears there, to such an extent, that everything would be as it was? It’s highly doubtful.

If retired judges in Florida want to blame a president, they might want to look at the president who insisted on conducting an unnecessary war in Iraq, while providing no methodology of paying for it. Or look at Frankin Raines, who along with that same president, decided to give a mortgage to anyone with a steady job, making $20,000 a year.

But that’s just my opinion, with some facts up front to support it. I do tire of overly simplistic nonsense that wants to blame a president who hasn’t even been in office for 90 days.

Barrett-Jackson held an auction in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 16-18. At that auction a 1956 Chevrolet BelAir hardtop, in excellent condition and sporting only 1,679 original miles, sold for $63,800 (including a 10 percent buyer’s fee); a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette convertible, in excellent condition and equipped with a 435 hp, 427 cubic-inch V8, sold for $165,000 (including same buyer’s fee); and a 1966 Pontiac GTO two door hardtop, sporting just 85,307 original miles and equipped with “tri-power carburetion (triple, two barrel carbs), sold for $49,500 (including buyer’s fee).

While the GTO was a bit soft, the BelAir and Corvette held steady to past values (Source: the December issue of Sports Car Market magazine).

The cars everyone agrees will come down – a bit – are the MoPar “muscle cars.” However, at a small – less than a 100 cars – auction in Bellevue, Washington, held on November first by Silver Auctions, a 1970 Plymouth ‘cuda coupe, in excellent condition and equipped with a 383 cubic-inch V8, sold for $47,500 (plus an 8 percent buyer’s fee).

There is no inflation anymore; and so collector cars aren’t selling well as a hedge against inflation. They are selling well because people with money still have it and are willing to spend it.

The real test of the market for collector cars will be the several auctions, held in the desert around Scottsdale, Arizona in January of the new year. Thing is, those auctions are really international affairs, and so it will be a test of the market not just in the States, but worldwide.

I don’t know about you, but my crystal ball is fogging up.