Saturday, July 18, 2009

Indy Motor Car Auction



For a first annual auction, the Indy Motor Car Group put on a great display! Hosted at the Indiana Live! Casino and Indiana Downs Horse track in Shelbyville, Indiana; everything was planned out perfectly and executed even better. Brent Fuchs, of Fuchs and Fuchs Indy Motor Car Auction Group had been orchestrating this auction for almost a year now. With Mr. Mike King, voice of the Indy 500 behind the microphone leading the auction and entertaining the crowd, the show was bound to be successful. And watching the 'main event', a 1953 Chevrolet Corvette with a complete frame-off restoration, was as exciting as it gets. Below is a video of the end of the Corvette on the block, it topped out at about $315,000. At that price, one would have thought it would have sold! When it didn't sell, one could wonder if the owner even wanted to let it go, possibly setting the reserve too high, knowing no-one would bid up that high.....

One attraction to this auction were 28 cars being sold from a state seized collection. All the cars were offered at 'no reserve' and there were deals to be had! To read more about how the cars were seized and who they were taken from, check out this article in the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-carsseized,0,2669776.story. Apparently, they came from a drug dealer in Indiana who got caught selling 5 pounds of marijuana to an undercover policeman.

To learn more about the great facilities this auction was hosted at, check out their websites at: http://www.indianadowns.com/ and http://www.indianalivecasino.com/. You can also find some great stuff to do in Shelbyville by checking out their website at: http://www.cityofshelbyvillein.com/ .



I think the high-dollar car of the evening was a dark moss green 1967 Shelby GT 500 signed by Carol Shelby. It ended up selling for $115k or $125k, I'm not sure on the final numbers. It was brought to the auction by Vail's Classic Cars of Greenfield. If you're looking for a well restored vehicle, check them out at http://vailsclassics.com/default.htm. They do everything from restoration to parts, appraisals, storage, and sales.