GM Auction Classic Cars : (
#1
04-10-2009 | 05:00 AM
GM Auction Classic Cars : (
General Motors to sell 100 of its classic cars, Saab to avoid bankruptcy 
General Motors, Americas largest carmaker, plans to auction off about 100 of its classic cars and sell off Saab, in order to avoid bankruptcy.The Los Angeles Times reports that GM will auction about 100 antique and show cars to help it raise money and cut down on storage fees. Every little bit counts. It costs a lot to house that many vehicles, said Greg Wallace, the manager of the General Motors Heritage Center.The auction will take place in Palm Beach, Florida beginning on Thursday and will include cars like 1920 Chevrolet Model T truck; a 1999 Camaro Z/28 used in the movie Runaway Bride; and a 1978 Corvette Indy 500 pace car - one of only four ever made.The buzz is huge over this, especially given whats happening with General Motors these days, said Steve Davis, president of the collector car auction company Barrett-Jackson.
New York, Apr 7 : General Motors, America's largest carmaker, plans to auction off about 100 of its classic cars and sell off Saab, in order to avoid bankruptcy.The Los Angeles Times reports that GM will auction about 100 antique and show cars to help it raise money and cut down on storage fees. "Every little bit counts. It costs a lot to house that many vehicles," said Greg Wallace, the manager of the General Motors Heritage Center.The auction will take place in Palm Beach, Florida beginning on Thursday and will include cars like 1920 Chevrolet Model T truck; a 1999 Camaro Z/28 used in the movie "Runaway Bride"; and a 1978 Corvette Indy 500 pace car - one of only four ever made."The buzz is huge over this, especially given what's happening with General Motors these days," said Steve Davis, president of the collector car auction company Barrett-Jackson.
General Motors is also looking to unload Swedish carmaker Saab Automobile, a deal that looks likely to happen by June 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported.In court documents, Saab claims that "currently there are more than 20 interested parties."
The names of potential buyers were not identified.
General Motors, Americas largest carmaker, plans to auction off about 100 of its classic cars and sell off Saab, in order to avoid bankruptcy.The Los Angeles Times reports that GM will auction about 100 antique and show cars to help it raise money and cut down on storage fees. Every little bit counts. It costs a lot to house that many vehicles, said Greg Wallace, the manager of the General Motors Heritage Center.The auction will take place in Palm Beach, Florida beginning on Thursday and will include cars like 1920 Chevrolet Model T truck; a 1999 Camaro Z/28 used in the movie Runaway Bride; and a 1978 Corvette Indy 500 pace car - one of only four ever made.The buzz is huge over this, especially given whats happening with General Motors these days, said Steve Davis, president of the collector car auction company Barrett-Jackson.
New York, Apr 7 : General Motors, America's largest carmaker, plans to auction off about 100 of its classic cars and sell off Saab, in order to avoid bankruptcy.The Los Angeles Times reports that GM will auction about 100 antique and show cars to help it raise money and cut down on storage fees. "Every little bit counts. It costs a lot to house that many vehicles," said Greg Wallace, the manager of the General Motors Heritage Center.The auction will take place in Palm Beach, Florida beginning on Thursday and will include cars like 1920 Chevrolet Model T truck; a 1999 Camaro Z/28 used in the movie "Runaway Bride"; and a 1978 Corvette Indy 500 pace car - one of only four ever made."The buzz is huge over this, especially given what's happening with General Motors these days," said Steve Davis, president of the collector car auction company Barrett-Jackson.
General Motors is also looking to unload Swedish carmaker Saab Automobile, a deal that looks likely to happen by June 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported.In court documents, Saab claims that "currently there are more than 20 interested parties."
The names of potential buyers were not identified.
#3
04-10-2009 | 07:20 AM
GM To Auction off Collection of Classic Cars Sell Saab by Summer, makes me wanta `Saab
- April 2009 -
WoW 1920 Chevy Model TWould make a SuperSurf'in BeachBum Ride
Things are beginning to look mighty desperate over at General Motors, America's largest carmaker. On Monday they revealed plans to auction off about 100 of its classic cars, as well as sell of Saab in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy.
GM will auction off 100 antique and show cars to help raise money and cut down on storage feels. The auction will take place in Palm Beach, Florida, and will begin on Thursday. Amongst those cars that will be auctioned off are a 1920 Chevrolet Model T truck, a 1978 Corvette Indy 500 pace car (one of only 4 ever made), and a 1999 Camero Z/28 that was used in the movie "Runaway Bride." GM held a similar auction back in January of this year, putting up nearly 250 classic cars for sale, most of which were 80's and 90's models.
Greg Wallace, manager of the General Motors Heritage Center, told the LA Times, "Every little bit counts. It costs a lot to house that many vehicles."
GM is also looking to offload Swedish automaker Saab Automobile. The Wall Street Journal has reported that a deal looks likely to happen by June 2009. Saab claims in court documents that "currently there are more than 20 interested parties", although declined to mention any names.
Last edited by Space; 04-10-2009 at 07:23 AM.
#5
04-10-2009 | 01:10 PM
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 6,482
From: Southwestern OH
I just got an email today saying a court in California has stopped the sale of the GM cars. Seems there's a question about the title some of the GM cars have?
I personally don't see the issue here?
Many cars are on the road today with salvage titles.
I personally don't see the issue here?
Many cars are on the road today with salvage titles.
#6
04-10-2009 | 02:12 PM
GM aka Government Motors plans to auction cars
Never seen this one B-4...Wow Sold for over a 1/2 Million $'s I like `it, just not that much
Barrett-Jackson Auction Co.
A 1996 Buick Blackhawk Custom, a convertible which was never put into production, sold for $522,500 at another GM auction in January.
It's the automaker's second sale this year of antique and show cars as the company aims to cut its specialty fleet in half. 'It costs a lot to house that many vehicles,' says an official.
April 2009
With the very survival of the nation's largest carmaker in question, General Motors Corp. is selling pieces of its history.
This week, GM will auction about 100 of its prized antique and show cars to raise cash and trim warehousing costs. The company seeks to cut its specialty fleet by nearly half. It once numbered 1,000.
Admittedly, what GM has raised so far this year -- more than $9 million -- is a drop in the bucket compared with the $13.4 billion in emergency loans that the U.S. Treasury gave GM in December.
"Every little bit counts. It costs a lot to house that many vehicles," said Greg Wallace, manager of the General Motors Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, Mich., that is dedicated to preserving the company's century-old history.
"Is it a good thing that we're doing this? Absolutely," Wallace said.
The vehicles will be sold in Palm Beach, Fla., starting Thursday. The listings include a 1920 Chevrolet Model T truck; a 1999 Camaro Z/28 used in the movie "Runaway Bride"; and a 1978 Corvette Indy 500 pace car, one of only four made -- and one of two that GM owns. (It's keeping the first one that rolled off the production line.)
starting Thursday. The listings include a 1920 Chevrolet Model T truck; a 1999 Camaro Z/28 used in the movie "Runaway Bride"; and a 1978 Corvette Indy 500 pace car, one of only four made -- and one of two that GM owns. (It's keeping the first one that rolled off the production line.)The news that GM was willing to sell pieces of its past sent groans through the world of car enthusiasts. It has also sent serious collectors scrambling for their checkbooks.
"The buzz is huge over this, especially given what's happening with General Motors these days," said Steve Davis, president of the collector car auction company Barrett-Jackson, which is handling the sales. "Even in this economy, people are looking for a tangible asset that doesn't shrink every time someone sneezes on Wall Street. Owning a piece of American history transcends owning a stock certificate or a lump of gold."
It will be the second time this year that GM has cleaned out a bit of its archives: In January, Barrett-Jackson sold more than 230 of the troubled automaker's vehicles.
Some, such as the millionth Saturn to roll off the production line, seemed yawn-worthy.
But others had bidders in a frenzy, including Indy pace cars and a "Popemobile" convertible built for John Paul II (complete with throne-like seat; Barrett-Jackson's website describes it as a 1998 Cadillac Brougham that sold for $57,200). A 1996 Buick Blackhawk Custom, a convertible whose design the company ultimately nixed, sold for $522,500.
Few of these collectible cars can be driven legally on public roads: Most of GM's offerings will be sold with a scrapped title (meaning the car is not road-worthy) or as a bill of sale (meaning it essentially is a work of art and is not to be driven on the road -- ever).
Figuring out which cars to sell has been hard, Wallace said.
Before the mid-1990s, each division of General Motors was responsible for housing its own history, including design schematics, automotive memorabilia and, in some cases, hundreds of different vehicles.
When the company opened the Heritage Center in 2004, the collections were combined. Staff found hidden treasures crated -- and sometimes forgotten -- in warehouses across the country.
"It was like an archaeological dig," Wallace said. They even found medical equipment, including a GM-developed heart-lung machine built in the 1950s.
The center now manages the Heritage Collection, an elite group of 350 vehicles that are "critical to telling the story of GM and are too valuable to sell," Wallace said.
Yet there were still hundreds of others -- vehicles built for trade shows, for example, or used by movie crews -- that rounded out a corporate specialty fleet.
In recent years, that fleet has hovered around 1,000 cars and trucks. Some vehicles -- prototypes never meant for the road -- were destroyed. A few were sold by Barrett-Jackson, with the proceeds often going to charity.
But as the economy spiraled downward last year, GM officials realized that instead of sending the vehicles to the scrap yard, they could make money auctioning them off. They identified about 450 vehicles that weren't rare enough or historically relevant enough to keep.
Most of the cars were culled from the company's broader fleet. But a few dozen came from the center, which has one of the richest collections of historic automobiles in the country. America's first concept vehicle, a 1938 Buick Y-Job, is there. So is a convertible with a V-16 engine that Cadillac built as the nation plunged into the Great Depression.
Although the facility is closed to the public, its staff routinely works with GM designers looking for inspiration, academic researchers hunting for data on alternative fuels, and other museums seeking to enhance their exhibits. General Motors hosts meetings and news conferences there.
"We realized that we had a lot of duplicates and cars that we could do without," Wallace said. He pointed to the 1967 Pontiac GTO featured in the movie "XXX." It sold in January for $53,900, according to the Barrett-Jackson auction site.
"We had three GTOs," Wallace said. "We figured, 'Do we really need three?' We decided to keep the best one."
Last edited by Space; 04-10-2009 at 06:39 PM.
#7
04-10-2009 | 05:54 PM
Is it possible some of the cars are not owned by GM, and simply on loan to GM by private owners? A lot of museums do that.
#9
04-15-2009 | 12:54 AM
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I'd love to see those cars in person ... before they are sold (if they are)....
Cort | 35swm | "Mr Monte Carlo"."Mr Road Trip" | pig valve.pacemaker ...RT 66 = Sept 5-16, '09
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"You don't know what you have 'til your everything is gone" ... Blessid Union of Souls ... 'I Wanna Be There'
Cort | 35swm | "Mr Monte Carlo"."Mr Road Trip" | pig valve.pacemaker ...RT 66 = Sept 5-16, '09
WRMNshowcase.legos.HO.models.MCs.RTs.CHD = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort
"You don't know what you have 'til your everything is gone" ... Blessid Union of Souls ... 'I Wanna Be There'
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