How To Sell a $70 Million Ferrari

Welcome back to The Gas, everyone, providing automotive news service with a smile since 2025.

I'm Gary Gastelou, this is The Gary and Alex Show, and with me on this unseasonably warm

day in the Northeast, Alex Nunez.

Alex, it's going to be over 50 around here today.

I know you have that convertible Mustang.

Do you have a threshold, a temperature threshold for when you'll drop the top on that thing?

If it's warm enough at 50 today, I'll be out getting coffee with the top down.

That's a 2006 Mustang.

We were talking a couple of weeks ago how now it is officially a classic vehicle in the

state of Connecticut.

I know you never would think about selling that, but if you were to sell it, you think

you would bring it to an auction to sell it for fun?

It depends.

I mean, you never know what you're going to get.

Maybe in 20 more years, I would happily bring it to an auction, because I think the older

and I think there's a lot more nostalgia around cars that show up at the various auctions,

the older they get.

I haven't been to one, but I watch a lot of them on television.

And what to me, it's fun.

You have these sort of marquee lots that get all the attention.

But some of the fun stuff is when you see the host walking around outside or in another

room where the sort of the obtainable like fun stuff is.

And I feel like a car like mine and other people that drive what I would still call like

a modern performance car that has some nostalgic appeal.

I feel like 20 years from now, those are the cars that are in that room.

Stuff that people might have wanted for a long time and is actually attainable where

you're not going to have to necessarily pay an arm and a leg, but the person selling

it might actually get a little return on a little better return than they might have going local.

Well, right now, there are 4,500 people selling their cars at the world's largest

collector car auction down in Florida.

It's the Meekum Auctions Kissemi event, a huge event in the collector car world.

And with us right now to talk about it is the CEO of Meekum Auctions, Dave Majors.

Dave, thanks for joining the show.

Good morning, guys.

Dave, this is a huge event.

It's really grown over the years.

I'm just boggled by the number of cars, 300, 400 a day crossing the block.

How do you even manage such a thing?

You know, I'm surprised by that myself.

Sometimes I started this morning.

This is day three of 13 days of the auction.

And it's hard to imagine that we've been doing this now for three days

and we still have another 10 days to go.

And maybe more importantly, we literally build a city here

at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissemi to conduct this auction.

My staff, there's about 350 staff that travel with what I call the circus.

They came here the first part of December.

And other than going home for Christmas, two or three days,

they've been here setting up this event for about a month, a month and a half.

So we're just happy to get started and happy to be on day three.

And you really do span the gamut from old scooters to exotic vehicles.

One of the marquee cars crossing the block this year is a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO.

The only one painted white.

Another one of these cars, a red one sold in 2018 for 70 million dollars.

Is this car going to sell for that kind of money,

which would be a new record at an auction?

Well, you know, we certainly hope so.

But to Alex's point earlier, we're selling cars yesterday and the day before

and even today for five, ten thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars.

So the auction is not all about the tens of millions of dollar cars.

It's about, as we like to say, it's a collector car auction for everybody.

Doesn't matter what your price range is, what your color, your brand,

your model that you're looking for, it's probably here in 4500 cars.

And then as we get to the end of the 13 days, of course,

that culminates in the marquee cars.

And of course, the most important car that we have here at the auction

in Kissimmee this year is the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO.

You know, the 62, 63, 64 GTOs, there were 36 of them manufactured.

They are the holy grail of collector cars.

There is no collector car more sought after than the 250 GTO.

This is the only one of the 36 that came off the assembly line, painted in

Bianco white. So I like to say this is a unicorn amongst holy grails.

And when you think about that, it really has no comps.

So, yes, you're correct.

The last one that sold at auction sold in 2023 for fifty three million dollars.

The one immediate before that in 2018 sold for 70 million in a private collection.

And this one is very special, Bianco speciale.

It's speciale because it's the only white one of the 36 that came off the assembly line.

What do you think this could potentially get?

I mean, could it do a hundred million or are we looking at 70 million

something like that again?

Well, you know, it's an auction.

So you you end up with two or three or four

bitters, spirited bitters that decide they just have that car.

And, you know, I would say that the range of value is probably somewhere

between maybe 45 million and who knows what the top end could be.

I mean, the crazy thing about this is people see these numbers for a car

and they go nuts, but artwork sells for this all the time.

And I mean, one of a kind vehicle like this is a combination of art

and engineering and the idea that it would cost this much.

I mean, it actually makes a lot of sense.

And, you know, there are a lot of vehicles that I would say are as much art

as they are vehicle.

Certainly, this is one of them.

Although these the 250 GTOs are not necessarily known as being garage

queens for someone that most of the people that own the 250 GTOs,

they were thoroughbred race cars, thoroughbred race horses.

And they do go to the track once in a while with their owners.

And and they test them out on the track as well.

So this is this is art that you can drive, art that you can track,

art that you can have fun with.

I've actually seen one of these at a track day that I just happened to be at.

I thought it was a replica car and like, hey, what kind of engine does that have?

And the guys mechanics like, it's got a Ferrari V12.

I'm like, oh, really? Where'd you get that from?

He's like, that's what the car came with.

I couldn't believe that someone was doing laps in this thing.

And it's it is art to imagine.

You have something that valuable that, you know, I'd have ropes

around it in my garage and probably bubble wrap around it so nobody could touch it.

I do want to talk about some of the other stuff.

But let me just ask you that car, as far as the people in the bidding pool,

are we talking about dozens of people around the world,

hundreds of people around the world?

How how many people actually might be looking to buy that car next week?

I we we have had interest in that car as we've campaigned it now over

the last several months, starting back when we unveiled it at our Monterey auction

in August. And and I would say easily we have had interest from roughly 10

people around the world, not just U.S. domestic of the 10.

You know, it's hard to say how many will register to bid or actually bid

on the vehicle, although I can say most of them have registered to bid

that we know of. And we have as we register bidders for our auctions,

they are approved for certain bidding dollar amounts.

So based on their representation of their financial well-being,

we will give them certain limits that they can that they can bid to.

And the total of all of the authorized bidding limits this year

is about five times what it's ever been for a Meakin Kassemi auction.

It's in the billions. Wow.

One of my favorite vehicles on the docket is the 1971 Hemi Kuda convertible.

It's one of the five built that year with automatic transmissions.

This one sold for 2.53 million in 2016.

So a decade ago, how's the market for the Hemi Kudas?

I know the record was set in 2014 at 3.5 million.

Yeah, that was a car that we sold.

Are we at that level again?

Was that the peak or where the Hemi Kudas these days?

I think we're I think every indication would be that that's,

you know, we're there, if not maybe a little better.

And, you know, you you picked out a great car.

And that, you know, we've talked about Ferraris and and European sports cars.

But as far as American muscle cars, the Hemi Kuda convertible is,

you know, probably, if not the top of the heat, very close to the top of the less.

And the one that we have is for auction is a very special car as well.

And so I think we could expect it to probably exceed the estimate

that's been put on the car for auction, which is the high end of the estimate

was 3.25. I wouldn't be surprised that that goes into the stratosphere as well.

That the Hemi Kuda convertible is always very popular,

very sought after when it comes around to to market.

So we're looking forward to bringing that car to the auction block as well.

It's just wild to think that these were basically discarded in the late 70s and 80s.

And now the ones that have survived have come back to command these sorts of numbers.

Yeah, it's great to see, you know, American cars, American muscle cars

from the 60s and 70s that command the same, you know,

kinds of value ranges that the European exotics command as well.

Overall, are you seeing the market move yet from 60s, 70s to 80s, 90s

as far as the values or the muscle cars and cars from that era?

Still the real giants, 60s and 70s is still, you know,

drives the, you know, the collector car, American collector car market.

But I think that has more to do with the age of collectors

than it does with the age of the cars.

And as we see, you know, those of us that came up, you know,

baby boom generation that were in high school and college in the 60s and 70s,

as they start to age out of the collector car market,

we're seeing a new demographic, a younger demographic

that's coming to collector cars, coming to muscle mansions.

And as they do so, they're looking for the 80s and 90s cars that they grew up with.

So I would say right now is a great opportunity for those collectors

to participate in the market because the values have not started to rise

with the demand yet.

So there are some really good opportunities for 80s and 90s cars

to be picked up as part of a collection.

And of course, as we've seen 60s and 70s cars at some point in time,

those cars are going to start to rise as well

because there's going to be more demand for them than there is supply.

Are there any mainstream 90s vehicles that you think

could be getting millions of dollars at some point,

the way that Amy Kood is and the Daytonas in them do now?

You know, I think there's a as we look at the market

and you think about, you know, some of the fast and furious movies

and and some of the cars that you see in those in those movies.

The Nissan, the 350, Nissan, the GTRs,

Fox Body Mustangs have become very popular.

You know, as we say in the collector car business,

as demand rises, supply does not because they're not making any more of those.

So it's I think that we will see that they will have every bit of the popularity

that the 60s and 70s cars have as that age demographic

that gets older as well.

Is there anything popular right now that's getting big numbers

that surprises you that it's so popular?

Pick up trucks have, I think, have been

in the stratosphere somewhat for maybe the last 18 months or so.

And I think, in particular, the 70s pickup trucks,

Ford F-150s, the GMC's, the Chevy's

started to drive the market.

And now what we're seeing is the 80s and the 90s pickup trucks

are starting to become very popular as well.

So if I had to pick out, you know, one particular type of collector vehicle

that's been the strongest over the last couple of years,

I would say it's any kind of pickup truck from the 70s to probably the 2000s.

Dave, you mentioned trucks that naturally makes me want to ask about SUVs.

I see there's like a in the first couple of pages, you know, on the listing,

there's a really nice K5 Blazer.

Do you think that the parallel era SUVs are going to track upwards

with the pickup trucks?

Are they already there or are they slightly behind?

What where do you see that trend moving?

You know, I might say that they kind of started the trend

because I think a lot of this, the increased interest

in what you pick up trucks, SUVs, what you might call it, started with Broncos.

Broncos Toyota FJs four or five years ago were extremely out.

Broncos are still very hot, particularly the ones that have been

restored and customized.

And so I think I think it started with those started with FJs.

It started with Broncos,

started with GMC Jimmies, started with the International Scout.

It grew into the pickup trucks.

And now we're seeing more of like Suburbans and even Tahoe's Blazers

that are starting to pick up steam as well.

So I think it's just been a natural progression.

Dave, do you ever buy anything yourself at the auction

or do you not sample the merchandise?

You know, we we we don't compete with our customers at auction.

Unfortunately, it does become an occupational hazard.

If you watch enough cars cross the block, you're going to see one of them

you're really like. And when the auction's over, you go out and try to find one.

And I've certainly done more than my share of that.

All right. Well, Dave, I know you got a lot of cars to sell the next couple of weeks.

Really appreciate your time joining the show. Have fun down there.

All right. Thanks, guys.

Alex, I just 4500 cars are going to be auctioned at this event.

I mean, just the logistics of that blows me away.

But the fact that there's that many interesting cars that are

and this isn't the only auction.

Meekum has auctions all the time around the country.

This is the biggest, but they're all huge like that.

It's it's really amazing.

And it's funny because I and I'm not ashamed to say it,

but it's like for me traditionally over years and years, Meekum always

to me was like very focused on like American cars, muscle cars,

you know, classic American, you know, vehicles from pre muscle era.

I mean, this Kissimmee auction is frankly insane.

There is some unbelievable stuff here.

I mean, obviously the GTO sucks up a ton of oxygen.

But I mean, you go through there's like a litany of Yanco Camaros,

which you might really rise and say, well, it's muscle.

But I mean, those are all like Hens Teeth type of cars.

But then it gets kind of wild.

There's 84 Camaro pro stock, like NHRA car. Amazing.

There's a couple of Porsche 9 62s, multiple Ferrari,

you know, 512 Berlinetta boxers, a couple of my favorites in the whole thing.

There's multiple Ferrari Daytona spiders,

including a yellow one that's very reminiscent of the one

that I actually drove once upon a time for road and track many years ago.

And then, you know, you brought up some of the other stuff from that

80s era. There's an 87 GMX in here.

I mean, there really is something for everybody.

It's a lot of fun.

I mean, I like watching these on TV

because you see so much cool stuff come across the line,

come across the block, rather.

And often you'll get a pretty cool story

about that car as it rolls across.

So it's really fun entertainment.

It's probably even more fun if you're there ready to buy something

because chances are you go to one of these things and walk out

with something that's really nice and fun and, you know, isn't going to break you.

There are, though, two 1960s for GT 40s.

One's a lightweight.

The other one is one of the only cars that Carol Shelby himself ever drove.

I think it's a prototype.

They're both going to go for millions, maybe 10 million each.

You mentioned the Yankos.

I think there's seven or eight Camaros, but then there's a 1969 Nova Yanko.

There's only about 10 of these left.

They made 38 of them and there's only 10 left.

They think they're not even exactly sure.

It's got the 427 engine in it.

That's probably going to sell for around 400 grand.

This is exciting stuff.

To me, I would rather get on a plane and buy a ticket to an auction

like this and walk around, then go to an auto show because this is so much better.

The way these things are staged, you can walk around and look at the lots.

You know, it's not just you don't just have to wait for stuff to,

you know, go across the block, you know, which is what you see on TV.

These are like the best car shows you can go to.

Big draws and I've been saying for a long time, the real auto shows

should have adjacent auctions going on to bring in the crowds

that are certainly going to trickle into the auto show.

It would make sense, right?

I mean, it's really the auctions are as much a part as, you know,

Dave was talking, you know, before we got on the air, you know,

the auctions, everybody, you know, like Monterey.

Monterey is anchored, obviously, by a couple of those big shows

and there's auctions all adjacent to it.

But you're right, maybe having activity like this around the sort of

putting them using your quotes that you can't see the commercial auto shows

might add some juice and certainly gives an additional reason for people

to stick around the area of where, you know, wherever the shows are having

and hang out, patronize those businesses and, you know, see a bunch

more cars that aren't just the new cars that you see at a traditional auto show.

Bidding well in cars is almost a sport itself.

But of course, one of our favorite motorsports is NASCAR and some big changes

there this week as commissioner Steve Phelps fell on the sword

and resigned from his position in the wake of the antitrust trial

and settlement with twenty three eleven racing and front row motorsports.

You remember a series of disparaging text messages sent by Phelps

to other NASCAR executives were uncovered during the legal proceedings,

foremost among them several levied at Richard Childress, whom he referred

to as a redneck and an ass clown, among other things.

No one said the resignation was related to this and NASCAR described it

as Phelps own decision, but it's hard to imagine it wasn't a direct result

of the way things played out and NASCAR really did need to do something

to make things right with the teams and the fans that were upset by all this.

There's also a letter sent by Bass Pro Shops founder,

Johnny Morris, who's one of the sports biggest sponsors that went public

in which he said that Phelps's comments made it abundantly clear

that he and his lieutenants are not capable of being fair and objective

when it comes to partially enforcing the rules and regulations that govern the sport

and sponsors still they can flex when it comes to motorsports.

She big ones. I mean, the change was inevitable.

There was a lot of dirty laundry that came out.

That was the whole case was was really ugly.

So I think that like this kind of this kind of change was inevitable.

I feel like I don't think anybody's really surprised that there was a change.

And I think NASCAR is probably happy to put sort of this chapter behind

and start looking ahead to the clash and speedways.

Of course, now the next step to getting back on everyone's good side

is announcing what the championship format is going to be this season.

And we're finally going to find out on January 12th during a press conference

at three thirty p.m.

There was a rumor going around on Reddit this week on NASCAR Reddit

that they are going to go back to a chase format with either eight or ten races.

Allegedly, one of the ticket sales people at one of the tracks told somebody this

and they were waiting to hear the final word.

I guess whether or not their race was going to be part of that.

But this was the word that allegedly the track got.

Nothing confirmed here.

NASCAR said nothing.

All the insiders haven't been able to confirm this yet.

What do you think is going to happen?

And what do you think we really need to get to?

Is a chase better than a three round with a four race finale?

They're not going to go back to full points.

Although with Phelps leave and you never know, they might just go crazy

and bring back full season.

Tell. Listen, I like full season points myself.

I think it works with the other motorsports.

And I think it would work here.

Ascent that, you know, a return to a chase style format is interesting

because it's closer to that points format than the sort of elimination

format that you get with the current playoff system.

So I have no idea.

I have no insights as to what's happened, what's going to happen.

It's going to be branded as some form of playoff, no matter what it is.

Personally, I'd be happy with a chase, you know, the big problem

with the knockout rounds and that single race finale is that, you know,

you've got four, eight, 12, 16 drivers racing against all the other drivers.

And it just you can't make it a tournament format.

You just can't because there's so many variables going on there.

But when you do have that chase, that little mini season,

then it's a little bit more like the rest of the season.

But I'll tell you this, if they bring it back, they should call it the chase again.

I think that would blow up the fan base.

They would go nuts if they said we're bringing back the chase and they called it

the chase. I think that would be exciting for fans for sure.

Well, regardless of how that ends up, we've got some excitement

over in the truck series, as we know, we've been talking about

the saga of Rams return.

Can you believe that we've been talking about this for weeks now?

I mean, they haven't even started yet.

And this is what we talk about probably more than anything on the ship.

That's a testament to the excitement of a new brand in the sport

and to Ram being really good at

keeping the narrative going before a single wheel is turned on the track.

Well, the latest piece of that narrative is that we've been talking about.

They're going to have five cars at Call of Gracie, the factory team.

Brendan Queen is going to be one of the drivers.

Daniel Died, Justin Halley.

They've got the free agent car that we're talking to Tim Kineskisk

about a couple of weeks ago, where they have a different driver

every week. And now we know what the fifth car is going to be.

They're going to be having a reality show competition

produced by Dana White.

Basically, it's the ultimate fighter, but for racing.

Fifteen drivers going to be competing against each other

at South Boston Speedway in Virginia,

and also Virginia International Raceway in a variety of vehicles.

And they're going to be eliminated over the course of eight episodes.

The first one is going to premiere on Fox Network at noon

on January 25th, then it's going to move over to Fox Sports One and YouTube.

This just sounds like so much fun.

I got to thank any NASCAR fans going to be wanting to watch this, at least check it out.

But I'm sure this is going to be good.

I mean, the ultimate fighter was a huge show.

And that really helped build UFC up to what it is today.

This is smart. I think it's really smart.

The show will probably be a ton of fun to watch.

And it's not like other dumb reality shows where, you know, whatever it ends

in, you never hear about it again.

No, the winner is is getting a seat and you're going to be able to watch them

week to week in the truck series, which is great.

That's a that's a big prize.

It's really important.

Getting a seat is not easy in NASCAR.

So this, I think the competition will be will be real.

And I think it'll be fun to watch.

And you spoke about Brennan Cleene's truck.

His race livery was unveiled this week, too.

I don't know if you saw.

So he's got a good looking truck with Cummins primary.

It's actually an amazing tie into what Ram has going on.

And that's what this whole Ram is showing, how you use the series to sell things

because on January 1st, Ram unveiled the first Cummins powered power wagon

truck, the first power wagon diesel model that's got a Cummins engine.

They're going to be advertising Cummins on Brendan Queen's truck.

Actually, every race is going to have that.

That's going to be the primary sponsor for the entire season.

And, you know, the other trucks are going to have this sort of stuff going on as well.

Again, we were talking to Tim Kaneska about it.

I think Ram's already got its money's worth out of this endeavor.

I think so, too.

I think I think they're at a point where they're going to be able to go in

and just have a lot of fun promoting everything around them being in this

series week to week.

I mean, it's a good time to be dropping the resurgence T-Rex.

I think they'll make some hay around this.

We all know racing is a really good marketing platform for the automakers

that are in it, and I think Ram is taking full advantage of that.

And they are keeping the identities of the 15 drivers secret

until the show premieres on January 25th.

But what I can tell from the trailer, this isn't some gimmicky thing.

These are real, probably up and coming drivers who really deserve a

shot at getting into the truck series.

It'll be cool. I like it.

Our thanks again to Dave Majors.

We'll be back again next week with Ford's big new sports car reveal

from the Ford Racing kickoff in Detroit and some Ford truck news to go with it.

Till then, thanks for listening.

And please go ahead and subscribe to the gas on whatever podcast platform

you are enjoying this on, assuming you're enjoying it.

The gas is a production of a car, media and American cars and racing.com.

How To Sell a $70 Million Ferrari

Ford Mustang

Ferrari 250

Nissan 350 Nissan

Nissan Gtrs

Mustang Fox Body

Chevrolet Blazer

Chevrolet Camaro

Ferrari Daytona

Chevrolet Nova

Dodge Ram

Dodge Power Wagon

About this episode

Original notes