I'm hoping you could help me or head me in the right direction.

My 81 year old uncle (a diehard NASCAR and Senior fan) is the original owner of a 2002 Monte Carlo SS Dale Earnhardt Special Edition. It's car #328 off the assembly line. It's been garage kept for 22 years with 9,300 original miles.

My uncle is in the twilight of his life and putting his personal effect in order. He loves this car and wants it to go to a good home someday. He has all the original paperwork, maintenance records and certificates for the car. What might make the car more unique, is that it's been signed with autographs from nearly every member of the Earnhardt legacy management team and crew. The car was even signed by his Dale Earnhardt's mother!

Although NASCAR has taken a hit in recent years. He asked me to do some research and find out if there is a market for an item like this or an auction house he could use if and when the time comes to sell the car.

 

No offense, but Id try not to get too wrapped up in who buys it. Id focus most on getting the most money for your family as you'll likely never see the car again. You'd just hate to net less money in your pockets just because one person's story telling is better than anothers - what they're telling you is probably all made up anyways.

Just seen some folks in the local vette group have a super hard time unloading a car because they were ultra picky waiting for just the right buyer to cherish it forever. Only for the special buyer they chose to get drunk and wrap it around a telephone pole two weeks later.

I don't keep a close eye on auctions across the country, or know where you're located, but I will say the big Barrett Jackson auction always seems to have a handful of these go through each year (not just the DE SR cars, but all of the nascar special edition montes). I go to it almost every year since its so close. You can search their site by make/model/year to see past sales results too.

Gut feeling from seeing the various nascar montes go through there over the years is it's probably a high teens to 20 flat car. Then minus all of the fees of course - at least a few hundred bucks for the entry (more if you want a better time slot), a couple grand in commission, and a couple grand in shipping if youre not close enough to drive it.

Theres also several really good online auction places these days with a fraction of the fees, but also a fraction of the visibility of one of these big shows. Kind of dice roll if the added cost of a big auction house would bring you enough extra money to outweigh the fees. If it were me, I'd probably try an online auction first with a reserve to see how that goes.

 

Thanks very much @bumpin96monte
That's a start.

 

You're welcome! I figure if nothing else it can give you a ballpark on value. If bet there's been at least a dozen go through in the last few years. Their website does a pretty good job documenting condition, mileage, sale price, etc.

 

@bumpin96monte - Do you have a link to that website?

 

Not sure if this will work (to take you directly to the previous auction search page), but here's a try:

https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Archive/Home/Index

Another one I thought of if you prefer online stuff is bring a trailer:

https://bringatrailer.com/

It's somewhat similar to ebay style online auctions, but it's car specific, and more importantly- unique car specific (ie people don't get on there looking for 2004 Kias).

If nothing else theyve got a good search function for closed auctions too that will help you get an idea of value. Looked like they had several nascar edition 6th gens sell in recent history with low mileage. Sales prices seem similar to Barrett, but Id bet their commission is lower and it saves you having to haul the car across the country if youre not near AZ, so it could net more in your pocket.

 

What are you saying?

 

You talking about that spam link? We get them every once in a while. Theyre taken care of pretty quickly.

 

I try

Been a lot more than usual lately for some reason.