Celebrity Car Wheelers and Dealers
Caveat emptor automezzo. Or you could be taken for the same $7,900 ride given a man who outbid the floor at a Spectrum Vehicle auction in Northridge three years ago and thought he’d bought the 1955 Buick featured in Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” video.
The car turned out to be a ringer. The consignor was out of the country, Spectrum was stunned, the buyer got his money back and the Buick was resold out of state as a nonentity . . . but the incident lives as a classic of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God goes the reputation of any auctioneer on Southern California’s celebrity car circuit.
Another sale featured a Cadillac convertible supposedly owned by the late Jayne Mansfield--except it was manufactured two years after the blond actress died.
Five years ago it was a Rolls-Royce, said to be direct from Howard Hughes’ holdings in England--if you can believe that Hughes would drive around in anything with a $99.95 paint job and an interior reupholstered in vinyl tuck and roll.
And there have always been the Elvis Presley cars.
“If all the cars that Elvis supposedly owned were put together, they would extend from Los Angeles to New York, bumper to bumper,” said Rick Cole, presenter of the annual Los Angeles Collector Car Auction, today and Sunday at the Sheraton-Universal Hotel. “We’re told: ‘Elvis owned it . . . Elvis bought it for me . . . Elvis gave it to his hair stylist who gave it to his mailman’s mother-in-law.’
“So we have become very wary of offering something that supposedly belonged to a celebrity. If we can’t check it out, if the celebrity’s name doesn’t appear on the pink slip, if we don’t know the reputation of the guy consigning it to us, if somebody can’t give us some bona fide, notarized statement . . . we’re not going to sell that car.”
Cole, who claims he has never been burned by a celebrity car that wasn’t, is collector car broker to the stars. He has sold everything from Tammy Bakker’s Mercedes-Benz 380SL to the Rolls-Royce fleet left by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Also Frank Sinatra’s 1956 Thunderbird, Sophia Loren’s Ferrari, James Bond’s Aston Martin, Batman’s Batmobile and the Buick convertible Rick Blaine drove to Casablanca airport.
This weekend, the 1957 Ford Skyliner that appeared in “La Bamba” (supported by studio paperwork) and Robert Mitchum’s 1971 Mercedes-Benz coupe (complete with photographs of the actor alongside his car) go on the block.
Yet of equal fun are the cars that will not be appearing at the auction.
“We’ve been offered a 1953 Cadillac that (country-Western singer) Hank Williams Sr. supposedly died in following a heart attack,” said Doug Johnson, consignment manager for the Cole auctions. “The same man wants us to sell a 1964 Chrysler he claims was an original Indianapolis 500 pace car.
“We’re forcing the guy to come up with documentation. He’s still promising to produce it.”
Johnson has been invited to sell a 1980 Z28 Camaro that, goes the claim of the current owner, once was owned by Bruce Springsteen.
“It’s a nice car but we’re not taking it,” Johnson said. “We just don’t see Bruce in a Z28 Camaro.”
But for absolute chutzpah, consider this:
“We’ve talked to a guy who was planning to change his name for $50, put his new name on the title of his car and then auction the vehicle through us as ‘a John Wayne-owned’ car,” Johnson said.
Undetected flimflam and forgery, of course, can be horribly profitable on the collector car market where a 1959 Cadillac convertible worth up to $50,000 under any circumstances will fetch $100,000 if it’s a genuine Elvis Presley car.
Which brings us back to that 1955 Buick that was never owned by Randy Newman.
According to those involved in the original dealings, the car eventually was shipped to Phoenix and sold at auction there. It was purchased by Philippe Junot, former husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco. And the car now has legitimate celebrity status of sorts.
“Cherried out,” Cole said, “it’s probably worth at least $25,000.”
Los Angeles Collector Car Auction, today and Sunday at the Sheraton-Universal Hotel, Universal City, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. both days. Admission $7 for adults, $2 for seniors and children 12 and under. (818) 506-6533.
