Car Auction Tempts Fans of the Exotic

Outside the large, white tent where cars--some antique, some classic--streamed through in a stately procession this weekend, Jerry M. Levy was selling his custom-embroidered motoring accessories, including the $6 black underwear with “Ferrari” embossed in red.

Levy, owner of the Classic Car Sportswear shop in Los Angeles and of a 1940 Ford convertible, described himself as “an old-car nut.”

“Everybody here that you talk to has a different personality. That’s what these cars are--different personalities,” Levy said. In his own case, Levy said, his car is “a way of going back, maybe to younger years.”

And at the biannual collector cars auction in Newport Beach on Saturday and Sunday, Levy was not the only one who spoke of cars the way others speak of a lover or an old, trusted friend.

The common bond linking those attending the auction at The Newporter hotel was an affinity for cars--in this case, collector cars.

“My dad is a doctor. This is just one of his little hobbies,” said Shelly Neese, 21, sitting inside a 1961 white, two-door Cadillac convertible--one of three cars her family hoped to sell Saturday. “We’re not millionaires or anything, but this is fun.”

Fun was how many described their day in the open-air auction of exotica. However, it was far from a weekend flea-market affair. The prices being asked, and often paid, inside the tent could bring gasps and even applause from the knowledgeable audience.

Johnny Carson’s 1981 DeLorean brought $18,250 from Larry Wiggins, a tool company owner from Carpinteria; Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Haythorne of Orange paid $23,500 for actress Zsa Zsa Gabor’s 1975 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.

The action was kept at a fever pitch by the auctioneers, who only broke their machine-gun deliveries long enough to let prospective bidders know they were not just kicking tires at Honest John’s Fine Used Cars.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this car should bring $40,000 in a minute . . . . We are, after all, talking about a very special car here, an almost one-of-a-kind, with only 37,000 original and true miles,” an auctioneer intoned.

Sonny McWright, owner of Sonny’s Detail in Santa Barbara, said he and his son washed and waxed 113 cars in two days to prepare for the auction. The owner of a 1969 Mercedes-Benz convertible, McWright said he paid $18,000 for the car as an investment: “I bought it for resale but my wife got a hold of it and that was the end of that.”

Kathy Lee and her husband had to say goodby to their first investment, a Mercedes-Benz 250SL.

“I’m going to miss her. She’s a sweet car,” Lee said. “It’s a hobby my husband just adores. . . . He’s got me so up on it that I’m hooked now.”

Auto owners paid $250 for each car they entered for sale, and parted with 5% of the price as commission to the auctioneers, according to Rick Cole, owner of Rick Cole Auctions in Studio City. Jack Gibbons and his wife, vacationing from Philadelphia, were interested onlookers, but not buyers. An investment banker, Gibbons already has two collector cars back home.

Why two? “They’re pretty,” Gibbons said. “It’s like collecting anything--like collecting Dewey buttons.”

Kim Anderson, 19, of Tustin glanced at an antique car and told college roommate Susie Whitman, 20: “Yeah, my Dad got one all picked out for me but the color was wrong. (But) it’s fun to dream about something that you want to have in the future.”