Collectible Car Auction Draws Buffs, Big Bucks

Tom Rowlett is a car dealer who knows his business well, and Saturday the Cleveland, Ohio, entrepreneur mixed a little business with plenty of pleasure.

Rowlett brought four classic cars to the Newport Beach Collector Car Auction, including a vintage 1965 Corvette Stingray.

When the car was rolled out, no one wanted to bid more than $16,000 for it.

“This is the finest coupe I have ever seen. It’s almost flawless,” auctioneer Rick Cole pleaded with the crowd. Still no one offered to up the ante.

Rowlett could only chuckle. When he called Cole recently to tell him he was bringing the car to the Newporter Resort, where the weekend auction is being held, the auctioneer bought the car for $18,500, thinking it would fetch more.

Way of Relaxing

“They (auction officials) begged me to sell it,” Rowlett said between chuckles as the car was whisked away unsold.

Rowlett, who owns 10 car dealerships in Ohio, said the car auction was his way of relaxing and enjoying himself. He did not buy any cars Saturday because he did not seen anything that struck his fancy.

“I bring my family. They lounge by the pool, and I come out here and have fun,” he said.

Cole, who runs one of the five major collectible-car auctions in the nation, said sales this year were brisk despite his miscue in buying Rowlett’s Stingray and then not being able to sell it for what he paid.

He said about $1 million worth of automobiles had been sold by Saturday. That figure is expected to double by the end of the auction today.

“We’ll probably sell about 60% (of the 560 cars auctioned) this weekend. And that’s damn good,” Cole said.

‘Try to Keep Price Down’

Although a majority of the collectible cars are vintage classics, most sell for less than $35,000.

“We try to keep the price down so people can afford to buy a car they like,” Cole said. “I want people to come in here and have a good time, whether they buy a car or not.”

A representative of the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas paid $20,000 for a 1937 Mercedes that is in need of major restoration. But the automobile drew plenty of interest: Lore has it that Adolph Hitler rode in the car on a trip to Bayreuth to attend a Richard Wagner music festival shortly before World War II.

“It was deemed collectible, so it was sold. Simple as that,” Cole said.

Drawing the most attention were the high-horsepower gas-guzzlers of the 1950s and 1960s, especially Thunderbirds and Corvettes. The Imperial Palace Hotel also paid out another $20,600 for a 1954 white Corvette, one of the original models.

Art Bartlett of Peralta Hills, a founder of the real estate agency Century 21, paid $22,600 for a handsome orange 1957 Corvette coupe. He was inspecting it shortly after he bought it and said it would go well with the other “13 or 14 cars I have.”

Although he made one of the better buys of the day, Bartlett was through. He said he was hunting for mid-1950s Thunderbird.

“That’s what I’d like to buy. I just really like cars,” Bartlett said.