TMCP #639: Ask Rick! Mecum Kissimmee Shockers — Is the Muscle Car Market Hot or Cooling?

The Muscle Car Plays online podcast episode number 638.

This week, Rich Middler is here to break down the month that was of the big January car

auctions, you know, Meekum, Berk Jackson, all the biggies, and friends, there's something

going on right now in this market because these auctions were kind of bonkers.

Now the big ticket cars at Meekum and Berk, that's one thing, but that's not what we're

here to talk about.

We're talking about stuff in our lane, like affordable 50s era T-birds and 80s performance

cars and late 60s Broncos that are selling for less than they cost to build right now.

All vehicles that may be, just maybe there's a window of opportunity on if you've been

holding one.

Won't work for everything and no one knows what will happen in the future, but that's

how you got to stop us from guessing anyway.

And Ricksy's promise.

Paying $130,000, $140,000 for a 375 horse, 396 horse speed, hard-talked Chevelle.

That's new.

I saw an awful lot of strength in the market and not just with 60s stuff and 70s stuff

and of course the 80s and 90s performance stuff has gone through the roof.

This is the Muscle Car Place online podcast brought to you by National Parts Depot.

This is the weekly show dedicated to people worldwide who love American muscle cars.

If you're buying, selling, restoring, even racing them, this is the place for you.

Now here's your host, Rob Kibbe.

Yes indeed, I am Rob Kibbe and welcome to the Muscle Car Place podcast.

Well, here we are, the first show of February.

So first, happy Valentine's Day.

Next week, Rick is here to break down this week, to break down the auctions that were

last week, or last month actually in January.

And we're going to find some deals to watch and bid for a little bit for funsies, but

to speculate on the future markets.

There's something up here.

There's something good.

And if you can read the tea leaves, maybe there's some money to be made.

By the way, I tried to get Rick to buy an 84 Dodge Daytona hatchback.

He said, no, that's all coming up.

That particular one's actually in the interview.

But as fickle as Rick is with investments and speculating, he does see something good

happening in our market right now, something very practical.

And maybe some tides have turned across the board from 50 stuff on up.

It's really interesting.

A lot has happened already this month.

And there's an event in our industry called MPMC.

And it's held in Los Angeles with SEMA.

And SEMA MPMC stands for Motorsports Products and Media Council.

That is a council and it's a group inside of SEMA.

But in our world, it's kind of like a speed dating event that you go to.

So it's held in a hotel in LA and lots and lots of manufacturers show up there.

And then lots of media show up there and you get a little 30 minute window with all of them.

And they're selling the media on their products and the media is selling them on their services.

Now, back in the day, I was like a redheaded stepchild out there.

Like I was the only dude doing stuff on the internet.

It was totally dominated by the media of the time, which was print media, TV shows,

stuff like that, all good things.

But that was the predominant then that is not the case now.

Now it is YouTube influencers, social media online influencers,

typically Instagrammers and TikTokers and then us as well.

The good news is that we're online.

Interesting.

We're one of the few automotive podcasts that go do events like that.

Kirk will have more to chime in on that in the future here.

But what a time to be alive right now, especially if you're a shop owner out there.

I've changed my opinion on this.

I used to think that if you're a shop owner, you need to focus on either making a great

shop or being a YouTube star.

That's not how it should work anymore.

I've changed my opinion.

You do need to do both.

You need to showcase your company online.

And the more of a personality you are, the better, I suppose.

But there are a few of you out there who are personalities and you're very good at it.

And you may as well showcase your stuff that way because that is how industry measures

who's doing what anymore.

They will look for not only who's doing things online, but who's getting comments

and interactions online.

It's a really interesting time right now in our industry.

The tables of how media is viewed by manufacturers has just changed.

It's all how do we get from influencers to the consumers?

That's how they think now.

So we've met a lot of cool companies out there.

Frankly, a lot of companies that we already knew and then a bunch of new ones.

There's something going on in that industry as well, but very, very fun.

You'll probably hear more about that in a couple of weeks here.

So speaking of a couple of weeks as a programming note, this will be a two show

month for a muscle car place.

That won't be the case for Kibbe and friends or anything like that.

But for muscle car place, that's the case.

First, it's by design.

February for us is typically a two show month.

That's just how our structure and our ad packages work.

We've built it that way.

But secondly, I'm going to be on.

So let's talk about that.

Burn, cue the Dallas Kibbe Legends car racing update.

Excellent intro.

Burn, well, the first national event of the asphalt legend season is here.

And it's called the Winter Nationals.

It's in Winterhaven, Florida.

It's February eight through 13.

It's called Auburn Dale Speedway, if you want to come.

Dallas ran a test there January second.

And that was to prepare for this event.

So the way it works in legends cars is probably like a lot of other series,

but you have regional events, series and then big national events.

The goal of legends car for him this year is this is probably the last year

to legends cars, you know, to really compete and learn to drive and the craft

and all that, frankly, you could learn from legends cars your whole life.

But for him, I mean, the big push to do the big events is now.

And you got to run the national events.

That's just how it works.

So he'll run this one.

There's one at Nashville in April, I believe.

There's the summer shootout at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

And then there's the biggie.

I think it's yeah, it'll probably be in Vegas again at the end of the year.

So he'll right now do all those items through the summer.

And the way they work is kind of like a week long basketball tournament.

You race every day, five days in a row.

And then you take the summary of the whole week.

And that's how you crown the winner of the event.

And there's a bunch of classes.

There's semi pros and pros and young lions and challengers.

And he's a semi pro again.

He was semi pro last year.

He'll be semi pro this year.

You get there the day before the event starts.

So you get there on Sunday, in this case, Super Bowl Sunday.

You check out three sets of tires and by checkout, you're forced to buy

three brand new sets of Hoosiers and then you own them.

You get three sets of tires because that evens the playing field.

Everybody has to buy three new sets of tires.

Legends cars run the same sized tire on all four corners.

But if you know anything about circle track racing, you know that you've got

to have some stagger in there that basically means the right side's got

to be taller than the left side.

Otherwise, the car won't turn very well.

The goal is to figure out which tires have more stagger than others,

which tires should go on which corner, which ones you want to save for the end

of the week, which ones you want to burn up for practice.

You've got to do all that.

So that's Super Bowl Sunday.

Then he'll race Monday through Friday.

You can watch it online.

I do believe it is for a fee, but it's at uslegendscars.tv, uslegendscars.tv.

You can just buy a membership there.

They show all of the big legends events there.

It's like pro level coverage.

I mean, it's really neat.

I'm going to buy a membership so that my family can watch from home

because it's just me and Dallas that are going.

But if you'd like to see them do that, that'll be fun.

This week, as we record this, they're running another event at the same track.

It's not a national event that's more practice focus and less racing.

And there's some non points races.

I think Thursday and Saturday there's races, but they don't count for anything.

And then Friday is a points race, but it's like kind of a one off.

So we're going to actually go in on Saturday morning and he'll race on Saturday

against a non points race.

It's throw away is not the right way to phrase it.

But it's a way to get a race that doesn't count under your belt.

How's that at the track, kind of in those conditions.

So that'll be the plan.

That's why I will not be here next week.

So the good news is I wasn't planning to have a show out next week.

Anyway, I'm not missing anything.

It is Super Bowl Sunday that will be bed and tires.

So that means while he's doing that, I'll be trying to watch

all the Super Bowl commercials on my phone.

No discredit to the Seahawks and Patriots.

And if you're a fan of one of those, you know, I wish you the best.

But this Super Bowl doesn't hold my interest that much.

The commercials sure do, though.

The Budweiser one that's out already is pretty good.

But that's what I'll be doing here.

So I will be gone for about eight days.

Anyway, when I get back, we'll catch back up.

But there's another reason we need a little break next week.

And we'll get to that next.

This concludes the Dallas Gaby Legends car racing update.

Burn Q, the outro.

Excellent outro, Burn.

Speaking of Burn and speaking of needing a little break next week.

Well, we do need a break next week because Burn had a break last week.

And by little, I mean, he broke his arm and he has to get surgery.

Poor Burn slipped on, you know, that terrible ice storm

and that went through Dallas last week and is still harming the country

on the south and east coast and all that.

Well, it cost us our man Burn's left arm.

He has broken it.

He's got to get surgery.

And that's what we thought.

We should cut him a break, you know, especially because we caught it on film.

Clark, dinner's ready.

Oh, wait, that wasn't Brady.

That was Christmas vacation.

This one was Bernie.

Oh, wait, that wasn't Bernie.

That was family guy.

Never mind.

I don't know what it sounded like when Burn slipped and fell,

but according to Burn, he did have something to say about it.

Maybe he'll tell us now.

Who knows?

Bernie's right handed, but he broke his left arm.

So he has put all this week's stuff together, one armed,

and he's going to recover next week while I'm gone.

So unfortunately, the time we worked out.

So nice job, Burn.

Where'd he go?

A lot is going on right now in the month of February.

I'm going to miss all of it here with you.

The Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, the start of the Winter Olympics.

And by the way, NASA is sending a rocket to the moon with humans in it.

That's going to be a busy week.

That NASA thing, I kind of geek out of this stuff.

So it's the second Artemis mission.

I think the first was in 2022.

This is the Artemis 2.

This one will be manned.

Well, actually manned and womanned.

There'll be a four person crew, three men and one woman.

They will not land on the moon, but they'll take the new Artemis rocket

up into space, do all the systems.

It's not battery powered.

It's solar powered.

They'll slingshot around the moon.

They'll come home.

They will not land.

Artemis 3 will be in 2027.

That one's going to land on the moon.

You know, my elementary understanding is the goal here

of the whole program is to not just return to the moon to win a space race,

but to establish a presence there, learn how to make rocket fuel in space,

learn how to live in space long term and then go to Mars.

And then probably win the space race against other countries

and, you know, have good defense system.

But I think it's all awesome.

I know that there's a lot of things you can spend your money on,

but I'm OK with this one.

This is really cool.

I wish them Godspeed.

I can't wait to follow it.

Also, what else is going on?

Groundhog Day has already happened.

This has been a busy month.

Well, the groundhog came out of the hole and did what the groundhog always does.

Now, on this February 2nd, punks of Tony Phil, the seer of seers,

prognosticator of all prognosticators,

was awakened from his wintry nap at dawn on Gobler's Knob.

Phil looked to the skies and then speaking in groundhog ease,

directed President Dunkle to the proper scroll, which reads,

it's my great honor to answer your annual call.

So I rise again this morning to greet you all.

But today I wake thinking of numbers and time.

America turns 250 and I'm at least 139.

Let's celebrate all young, old, babies or millennial

and kick off America's semi-quincentennial.

We look to the future and not just the past.

So I suppose this party could use a forecast.

It is my job this February 2

to look to the skies and report back to you

that there is a shadow here on my ground.

Six more weeks of winter abound.

How about that? Six weeks. We knew that, Phil.

We knew that from both of you, Phil's.

Isn't it always six weeks of winter? I don't know.

OK, one final thing before the interview with Rick Schmidt, actually two.

The first, the velocity interview last week, a couple of weeks ago, I guess now.

That was really interesting.

I did get questions on that.

Let me just put it this way.

If you have any experience with any of their vehicles personally,

I would like to hear from you.

What they're doing there is, frankly, really cool.

I didn't think that, quote, unquote, mass production

of restoration vehicles was possible, but they're doing it.

And they have been doing it not for a short amount of time for quite a while now.

So I'd love to know what their quality is like from an owner

or anyone that's driven one.

Hit me up, Robert at themusclecarplace.com.

If that's you, please let me know.

You don't even have to own one.

I just want to know if you've seen one driven one, touched one.

I want to know what that's like. So there's that.

The second thing is, and this is a public service for us all.

Don't forget that Valentine's Day is next week.

It's February 14th again. OK.

Don't forget my first day with my wife was February 14th, 1998.

It's always easy for me to remember.

I remember that more than my anniversary, but don't forget.

She's going to tell you she doesn't want anything she does.

Yeah, just get something. OK.

I hope you're enjoying the Kibbe and Friends show on video.

That's going well.

We will have a Kibbe and Friends next week, but it will not be on that.

It will be a bonus audio show.

It's going to be a rerun since our man burned us down.

And because of the Daytona 500 coming up, we're rerunning

our ever famous review of the movie Days of Thunder because, well,

it's the Daytona 500 and it's Days of Thunder.

What else would we do? Right, Bernie?

All right.

Well, we're still under a car.

I want you to go back out on the track and hit the pace car.

Hit the pace car. Hit the pace car.

What for?

Because you hit every other damn thing out there.

I want you to be perfect and go on, go, go, go.

Yeah, damn right, Bernie.

OK, even with one wing, he's still got a sense of humor.

All right, let's go ahead and get to the interview.

Up next is Mr.

Rick Schmidt on the auction season that was.

Now, Rick is here to tell you that there's

possibly some deals out there to be made.

And he's seeing some windows of opportunity in the market here.

Wherever your position is, there's movement in the collector car industry.

And this year was the biggest meekum you've ever never been bigger.

So maybe time for you to make some green for yourself.

Enjoy.

The Muscle Car Place Weekly podcast interview is brought to you by our good

friends at National Parts Depot.

See them through the link at themusclecarplace.com.

Up next on the National Parts Depot hotline is Mr.

Rick Schmidt from NPD. Rick, happy Valentine's Day

and happy Post Groundhog's Day.

Do you like Bill Murray?

I love Bill Murray.

I do, too.

And I don't know that I have a favorite Bill Murray movie,

but Groundhog Day is definitely at the top, if not the top, maybe.

I don't know. I love it. Absolutely love it.

I try to see it every year.

When it's on TV, I stop and I just love it.

What is your favorite Valentine's Day routine?

Is it just classic chocolates and flowers, dinner, nothing?

Just a Hallmark movie, holiday?

What do you do?

For Elaine and I, it's always been borderline Hallmark holiday.

Both of us aren't into the going out for a fancy dinner

because all the restaurants dumb down their menus and do these.

Not into that. Yeah.

It's usually just very low key of a nice personal card.

I have to be careful what kind of flowers I get for Elaine

because she's allergic to certain ones.

And I always seem to forget which ones those are.

That's on me. So we're pretty low key.

I still go to work and go home.

We'll have a nice meal or something and watch a movie.

Either my mom or my dad, I honestly don't know who it was.

Probably my mom always bought like the little Valentine's Day

shaped chocolate, Russell Stover thing, you know, from the drug store.

And to this day, I still do that.

I buy one for each of my kids.

I buy one for my wife.

She'll eat like all the good ones

and leave me like the duds, which is fine

because I've cleaned up duties my job.

But cool.

Well, here's what we got going in February.

Quite a bit of things, really.

Super Bowl and the Daytona 500,

both NFL and NASCAR's biggest events of the year,

exactly one week apart.

Do you have a favorite for the Super Bowl?

It's Pats versus Seahawks.

I'm neither a lover or aator of either team.

So going into it and just kind of watching how both teams played

in the semis, the AFC and MSC championship games,

I think I'm going to be rooting for the Seahawks.

I like that team.

That and I think that they're just going to clobber the Patriots.

I really think they're going to mop the field with them.

Every game they play, they seem better than the last,

which is frustrating, but they're good.

Yeah.

And I think the Patriots quite honestly escaped from Denver.

If it hadn't been for that one turnover right there

within 15, 20 yards of their goal line,

I don't think they would have scored a point

with other than those three.

In the lore of Super Bowl ads, has there ever been a car ad

that has moved the needle before that you can recall

in all your years of seeing the Super Bowl

and their remarkable ads?

And obviously today's day and age is different.

All the ads are typically online and available before the Super Bowl,

which is a bummer because they're not revealed anymore.

The only one I remember, Rick,

either the C5 or the C6 Corvette, and it's all these kids

driving Corvettes around the city.

They're real cars and they're real kids, but it's comical

and they're like jumping them across rivers.

And like one little girl jumps her Corvette over the river

and the other guy jumps his over the river

and they kind of smile at each other midair.

I remember those, but does the Super Bowl help

with car sales or does it matter?

I don't think it matters.

For what that ad space costs, I think companies that advertise

during the Super Bowl are more on an ego trip

than return on an investment analysis.

I've always felt that about a whole lot of marketing.

You pay big bucks to be up in lights in this expensive position

and you're spending jobs to be over here and everything else.

But if you really do the math of what you got for what you spent,

you flunk Business 101 and that's not a money-making proposition.

It's an ego trip.

I told you before on this forum we have here

that I think a lot of racing sponsorships are just CEOs

of billion-dollar corporations who are racing fans.

They're not doing it because, hey, if we put M&Ms all over this NASCAR,

we're going to sell so many more M&Ms it's going to pay for the effort.

But yeah, sure, they probably sell some more M&Ms.

I've never once seen an NASCAR race where all of a sudden

I go running to the store and craving M&Ms or,

oh, I'm going to ship UPS tomorrow or any of these other sponsors.

I'm probably talking about old sponsors that don't even exist anymore

because the board of directors probably pulled the plug on this old entire thing

and told the president quit spending on stuff that doesn't pay for itself.

But I think the Super Bowl is more of a trampoline

for maybe an up-and-coming type of company.

The boy, what a gamble.

But they take big risks and sometimes you get big rewards.

But if you're not a household name,

but you've got a hot business on a hot trajectory

that the public maybe doesn't know much about it,

then maybe you hit a home run if you have a really good, funny,

or just Super Bowl ad that really knocks people backwards in their chair

and go, wow, that was awesome.

And then you can accomplish two things at once,

stamp your brand into people's brains,

but also introduce yourself to a whole lot of people.

Coca-Cola isn't introducing themselves to anybody.

Yeah, or Budweiser.

Who doesn't know what Budweiser is,

how much a six-pack is and where you can get it.

And who's going to watch the Super Bowl and see a Budweiser ad?

And all of a sudden, man, that's a good ad.

I'm switching brands.

I'm a Bud drinker from here on out,

because that was a really good advertisement.

Nobody does that.

So I think it just turns into ego and tradition

that if you really listen to your bean counters

onto how much sales increased the week after the Super Bowl,

the month after the Super Bowl, the year after the Super Bowl,

you add it all up, you spend millions, millions, millions of dollars on nothing burger.

When I think of the Super Bowl and I think of even the Daytona 500

or where this relates to car companies, period,

cars aren't consumables like a Budweiser,

or there is one ad I remember from the Super Bowl fondly.

It was for Tabasco sauce.

It's a guy sitting on his porch sweating,

eating pizza, putting Tabasco sauce all over it.

And he gets bit by a mosquito,

and then you see the mosquito fly away and explode mid-air from the Tabasco sauce.

That's a memorable ad.

And I can tell you for a fact,

we have some Tabasco sauce in our fridge right now.

Actually, it's Frank's hot sauce.

Now that I think about it, but I have some.

Come on now, Frank, that's a little white compared to the Tabasco.

It is.

I don't.

But you'll think of finance companies.

And then as we discussed the Daytona 500,

that's only a week later.

I do follow how the marketing world works there in racing.

That world has shifted so much.

It used to be that a brand, so like Goodwrench or Ford,

would align themselves with a car for a year.

Those days are over and they've been over for some time.

Most of the top vehicles in NASCAR or NHRA have multiple sponsors.

You have to serve your clients.

So if you're a team and you've received the sponsoring dollars,

you got to do all the stuff you would do for that sponsor times seven.

If you got seven sponsors, it's a lot more work to really

make the same thing.

All seven of those sponsors, their exposure and their return on their investment,

is diluted in almost an exponential fashion to where, let's say,

if they took the one big chunk that they used to get from the one sponsor

and they carved it up into seven pieces and now they divide it in seven,

which are more digestible bites and more affordable.

But now you're getting even less than one seventh of whatever you were getting

in the first place because you're surrounded by all those other logos.

It's like a deluxe pizza.

Well, yeah, there's sausage on there, but so there's pepperoni and onions and mushrooms

and green peppers and everything else.

And it's just a big deluxe pizza.

I don't know what the right answer here is.

But then I think all seven of those sponsors somewhere at the top

is a NASCAR nut who just can't help himself,

but the unload 2% or 3% of his annual budget on NASCAR.

So he can fly into the races on his private jet and sit in the suite.

Seems like a lot for a seat.

This is just my theory.

Maybe it works and I'm just full of it.

The news that just came out from the Detroit Auto Show also lends to

how brands are spending in a specifically car brand.

So I'm old enough that when I think of racing,

no matter what the form of racing is, I really think about the brand behind it.

So Chevy GM, Ford, that's what I think of.

Here is Ford CEO Jim Farley out right now in automotive news

on not ruling out automotive sedans.

He says, never say never.

The sedan market is very vibrant.

It's not that there isn't a market there.

It's just we couldn't find a way to compete and be profitable.

Well, we may have to find a way to do that again.

And he was addressing a bigger article talking about the sedan market in America.

There are basically no American cars in it.

If you want a four-door sedan, you got to buy a Camry or a Honda Accord

or an Acura or a Mazda or something like that now.

I've been noticing some of these imported four-door sedans,

the newer ones just driving around town.

Man, there's slick looking ones, especially Acura.

Have you seen any of the new Acuras rolling around?

I have.

Beautiful, gorgeous cars.

They look more expensive than they are,

which is always I think the goal in styling these days is to spend this much,

but look like you're rolling around in that much.

The same thing with the Hondas, which is the same company,

is it getting better and better looking.

Toyota's been a little bit strange, but it's Toyota.

Toyota went from being a plain white refrigerator appliance styling to trying

to make their Camrys look like they're aggressive.

Maybe that's the whole entire NASCAR.

They're all the same looking to me.

What Farley was addressing is in 2026, there's a shift here.

His goal, I assume all the manufacturers are on this shift here,

but a $30,000 electric vehicle, a budget friendly EV pickup, which is the Maverick.

Getting away from the high margin, large $80,000 to $100,000 SUVs as consumer vehicles.

Have you ever seen a market go more affordable in your lifetime before?

It seems to be that people have been buying the expensive cars the whole time.

Has there been an actual lag in sales?

I can tell you that you go buy a new pickup and it costs just as much,

if not more than the one from a year ago for the same truck.

Yeah. The trucks just continue to blow my mind.

I can't say that I keep my finger on the pulse of what things cost as far as that goes.

I think if you really stepped kind of far back, if I was to guess and looked at the

big picture view of who's gaining market share, let's say incidents,

I think the Korean manufacturers, and I think they're both attached to the HIPAA, Kia and Hyundai,

have very quietly taken a very dominant position in delivering very high quality

and good looking product cheaper than everybody else, and they're making money doing it.

If I was far away, if I was wanting to get back into the sedan business and get forward back into

the affordable family car that is truly affordable and kind of breaks this bell curve

towards the other direction to moving acquisition of a nice, well-optioned car for the family

at an affordable price, I would be staring squarely at South Korea.

Of course, you want to pay attention to what Japan is doing,

but it seems like the Koreans are the camel that stuck their nose under the tent 30 years ago.

Now they are the tent. I don't read all the automotive news articles and keep my finger

on this pulse. I just know what I see in droves. In fact, two of my three daughters are driving

little Kia SUVs right now. It's all they could afford, and it's all they could afford. They were

very, very reasonable compared to anything comparable in that class, and I've driven them,

and it's a really nice car. It's a really nice car. With every option and listable

bill that you could possibly want for about $30,000 out the door for a brand new car,

for a place probably going, yeah, $30,000 for a brand new car, you could buy a Corvette for $30,000.

You can't anymore. That was 30 plus years ago. You know, I fell on it. Inflation is a thing.

Anyway, that's where I'd be looking. I've been fooled by many a

Genesis Hyundai Genesis thinking, wow, is that a Rolls Royce or something? No, it's a Hyundai.

Oh, yeah, there's a lot of Mercedes. They crib some stuff, and then every once in a while,

I've seen a lot of original design just in the Kia's and the Hyundai's, but then when Hyundai goes

high end, sometimes they rip some stuff off, but their SUVs are very wildly styled, and I don't see

that they're really stealing the styling from anybody else. It's their own thing. You can tell

that they have an unlimited budget for the stylus that they're hiring. There is definitely something

happening in the world here with the quote unquote EV mandate gone. There's a shift, at least in how

people are speaking about what the cars are that are going to be produced. Having more affordable

new cars is always a good thing. So I'm interested to see where that lands here.

And that'll flood the market because people will start trading in. Once you get that cycle into

motion, then there's more nice clean use cars on the market that are affordable for people who

can't afford the new ones. The Tide lifts all boats. Well, definitely, because I mean, the

average new car that you buy now, it stays like a really good car for 10 years.

Wait some time, yeah. As long as you keep up with the oil changes, yeah.

Keep up with the maintenance and that you really can get a lot of nice, usable life out of them

before you have to really start pumping any money into them. The auctions, the January auctions,

have come and gone. And we're going to look at a few cars here, but just in general,

do you pay attention to the January auctions to track markets?

Oh, absolutely. And I'll tell you what, it's just January and there's plenty more auctions

to come. But from what I saw in person down at the Kissimmee Meekum auction, which, by the way,

blasted the roof off of all previous auction records, we did all told for the entire event,

$441 million in sales. And I think the sell-through was over 80%, like 82, 83%, which is very,

very strong. So strong, strong, strong, strong. And I just noticed a lot of little tidbits of

things like, hmm, well, that's turned around considerably, 55 to 57 Thunderbirds. I always

kind of keep an eye on those because NPD began in our basement selling teabird parts, little

teabird parts. So of course, I'm always keeping my eye on the teabirds. And as of last year,

a classic Thunderbird, the passenger Thunderbird, was just about the most undervalued,

cheap, depressed market there was. You buy a clean, nice, really nice driver,

little bird for $25,000 to $30,000, which is so undervalued because they're not easy to restore

and they're not cheap to restore. And you think about what a 50s Corvette sells for,

compared to a 50s Thunderbird and it's like, okay, why is that? And just down at the Meekum

auction, I saw, now these cars, they weren't freshly restored concours winning killers.

They were just nice cars, older restorations, very nice drivers. And they were selling for

60 to 70. And then whoever bought it had to pay the commission on top of that. That's almost

double the market of one year ago. And I saw off a lot of other things that I'm like, well,

that's new. 66, 67, not convertible, but SS396 hardtop Chevelle's going for six figures,

well into six figures. And I looked at the cars that were bringing that money and they were just

okay. They weren't the best of the best. I wasn't wanting to bid for them, but people were paying

$130,000, $140,000 for a 375 horse, 396 horse speed hardtop Chevelle. That's new. I saw it in

strength in the market and not just with 60 stuff and 70 stuff. And of course the 80s, 90s

performance stuff has gone through the roof, absolutely through the roof. Even the 50s cars

that everybody's written off, all those enthusiasts, all those guys, they're all dying. Nobody's going

to be interested in those cars. Yeah, right. I saw a strong market for 50s cars as well.

For four by fours to not hide what we're going to do, but we're going to do six specific cars

for Makeem to chat through. Here's a few that I did not send you to review. There's a window right

now in early Broncos. And there are several companies out. We just had one on the podcast,

really nice company, Velocity, right there in Florida. They'll make you a brand new 66 Bronco.

Well, there's a beautiful one sold at Makeem with 400 miles on it, $106,000. It cost more than

that to build it for sure. So that's a money maker for whoever bought it, as long as it goes up in

value. A 70 Chevelle SS454 LS6 car, I don't know if it's a numbers matching car, 121,000 bucks.

That to me seems a little undervalued. I would just go ahead and say with absolute certainty

that car was radioactive. A true LS6 doesn't sell for that low, period.

It's so cool looking though. Yeah, whoever bought it, either bought it being very naive and thinking

they were buying a real LS6 or they bought it knowing that it was a faked up one and they

didn't care. Or maybe it was documented, which I don't see here in the listing as a replacement

engine or a duplicate or a clone or something like that. 2009 Nissan GTR with 2,000 miles on it,

108,000 bucks. 89 Irox Z, 1 LE, 305 with a five speed, fairly low, 15,000 kilometers on it.

It must be a Canadian car, $53,000. 82 Corvette collector edition with 275 miles on it,

55,000 bucks. And possibly my favorite because I actually watched this go across the block,

1996 Cadillac Fleetwood Sedan, 817 miles, $53,000. I saw that one. You know why? Because I still

have my dad's 95 Fleetwood Brom that he bought new. It isn't that low mileage because he drove it. I

think he put about 20 or 25,000 miles on it, but it doesn't even have a rock chip on it.

It is brand friggin new. It doesn't even look like anybody ever sat in the driver's seat.

It is perfect. But as soon as I saw that Fleetwood Brom for that kind of money, I just was like,

oh, my dad's going to flip out when he finds out what people are starting to pay for this

for a Fleetwood Brom. And that kind of makes me smile because it is a great car. It's one of

the last body on frame cars, I think. And they don't make them like that anymore. So for special

examples, you know, everybody's like, oh, that's ridiculous. Well, there's plenty of other clean

ones like my dad's car that are higher mile, but still plenty of fresh mechanical and everything

else that you can get for a lot less and have a neat little cruiser, little, a neat large cruiser.

What's also interesting is the big numbers get the headlines, but I personally went and looked.

I looked at the octane results from Kissimmee. There's over 150 pages of sales,

the bulk of which are for items and cars under $30,000. It's the top 30 or 40 sellers that are

the high ones that bring the numbers up, but there truly is something for everyone here. So

here's what we're going to do. Here's our car review. Segment number one, Rick, you went to Meekum

and you bought three of these cars. You bought them all. They're all under $60,000. Which one

is going to sell best next year for a good ROI, whether that's Casper Percentage,

don't care. What do we have there for the first car that you bought this year at Meekum?

A nice affordable fun car. Really? You think that I bought a 1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo hatchback?

You got distracted by the turbo. It's a turbo on the door. You just threw your money down.

No pressure. It's under itself. 1,300 is what it sold for.

1,300. Okay. So not a lot of money for a nifty little car with only 5,000 miles on it.

Well, it's a tough one, Rob, because for a 5,000 mile little Dodge Turbo, that's not a whole lot

of cash outlay, but I think way down the road, five, 10 years from now, 20 years from now,

these are serious who cares cars. They're the cars that'll be in the corners of people's

collections that are just sitting there. But when he asks the guy, why do you have it in your

collection? He'll shrug his shoulders as his answer will go, I don't know, man, it was cheap.

Unless you owned one when it was a new and it was like your high school car or your first

performance car that you ever owned and you had an emotional attachment, these are kind of

who cares cars. It's a sporty version of a K car.

Okay. Well, what do we have for the second? Affordable car under 60. And again,

the goal was to be under 60 here. 2017 Chevrolet SS Sedan. This is a evolution of the Holden

platform, I believe, after Pontiac was gone, and these are pretty desirable and pretty hot.

They're kind of plain vanilla and styling. They are sleepers. This one only had 3,000 miles on it.

It's got the 6.2 liter 430 horsepower V8. It's a really neat car, low miles, and it did very well,

I think 55,000. Will anybody care about this car into the future? Probably because this is

another example of they just don't build these anymore. Well, the Germans do. I drive a twin

turbo V8 out of the Sedan, so that makes about 570 horsepower. So how do you still do in it?

Mercedes still does it, but those cars aren't cheap. These Chevrolets were,

it was a very, very sophisticated driving and a very good performance vehicle for the money.

And if you can find its Caprice sister taxi cab or police car, that's a good time for very little

money. I think they made these in a stick, but this one is not. This is an automatic.

Yeah. These will always be worth something, but I don't see if these cars is being something like

getting into a Grand National when they were cheap or getting into a Mustang Cobra when they were

cheap. I don't think them blowing or getting into an Iraq when they were cheap. I don't think

these will blow up like that. I just think people always think that they're a pretty cool car and

they'll always, but I think they're kind of flat. I don't know what the third one is, but I don't

see one that's going to be a future explosion where you do really, really well to snatch it up

and call it an investment. Well, let's try the third one. Again, the goal was to buy something

under $60,000 and they all are. The third one is under $20,000.

I just sold about a year ago. I think I mentioned it on here that I fined the herd a little bit,

sold off about a dozen vehicles from our collection that, just to make some room,

there's over 220 vehicles and I didn't have space for anything new. And that kind of annoyed me.

I don't believe in putting cars up on lifts and putting them up in the air and

want everything down on the ground and accessible, not parked in and blocked in.

I got a little bit rid of a few things and one of them was

same as a 1986 Capri ASC McLaren convertible. Mine was black with tan interior and tan cloth

and tan laced wheels, active car, 16,000 original miles on it. The fellow I sold it to

was a good friend of mine and he's also a dealer and he's been trying to sell that car for the last

year and he can't get anybody to pay what he paid me for it. The Capri is a Mustang.

For a while Ford made a Mercury Mustang called the Capri. Yeah, from the very beginning up until

the 1986 was the last year for the Capri and that was the last year that ASC made their convertible

conversions using the Capris. The Capris is arguably a more handsome car than the Mustang

counterpart. It really is. It's got kind of flair defenders and a really great looking front end,

a good looking car. But for some reason, reasons that I cannot explain and never will be able to

explain the red hot Fox body enthusiast market right now that's willing to pay over $100,000

for a low mile 93 Cobra who's willing to pay $70,000 for an 87 LX notch back five speed

with low mileage. Nobody seems to be the least bit interested in these rare high end

occurrence. They sell for dirt and they just aren't catching on. And the one that I sold,

I'm kind of glad it's gone because it wasn't going anywhere and now it's kind of a ball and chain

on my poor friend's inventory that he can't see. It went through the Kissimmee auction,

16,000 mile car, clean, black with pan and great colors. It's not automatic, but it stole that at

16 grand. So this I would definitely not unless some miracle happens and everybody all of a sudden

changes their mind and starts embracing these ASC conversions. They're just for whatever reason

at the bottom end of the food chain when it comes to values of Fox body Mustangs, which is odd

because back in the day they were the most expensive Fox body Mustang you could buy off the

showroom floor. So between this, the SS and the Daytona, what are you going to do? Which one's

going to make us more money? I'm buying the SS because even if I make less money on it, at least

it's a cool car that I'd really, really be geek to have in my collection because it's such a nice

car and fun to drive. Every time I would take that Dodge Daytona out to exercise it, I'd be

questioning my sanity as to why am I taking up square footage with this? I'm not following,

how do you feel? I don't know. I know there's always, I stuck my foot in my mouth doing a tour

the other day, but I know there's one or two Daytona's ease listeners out there are going,

you son of a bitch, it's the best car in the world. And it doesn't do anything for me. It's

front wheel drive, two liter turbo there. I think the Chevy SS is the most unique of the three,

the highest quality of the three and has the most future potential of the three. So even though it's

the most expensive of the three, I'll go with the red Chevrolet. Okay. I have met some Shelby

enthusiasts, you know, front wheel drive Shelby enthusiasts that have ripped me a new one in the

past. I was doing a tour of a car club from down in the villages a few weeks ago. I always kind

of make jokes about my DeLorean because I've got a 7,000 original mile five speed manual shift,

brand new condition DeLorean that I consider to be a real borderline piece of junk. And

they're not enjoyable to drive every time I take it out, even with all those low miles,

something breaks on it. It's just there because it's a DeLorean and it's cool and it's a piece

of automotive history. My father bought it years ago when DeLoreans didn't cost a whole lot of

money. So there it is in our collection. If I ever sold it today, I can quadruple the investment

on it. But I'm always joking about that DeLorean. And as we're going by and talking about the DeLorean

because it's got the gold wing doors, a fella pipe something says, do you have a Brickland?

I don't have a drink. Why don't you have a drink? And I was like,

I wouldn't think that I could have anything lousier than this DeLorean sitting here

and the guy owned a Brickland. So I had to go over and give him a hug and pat him on the

back. And I was like, man, this is just a joke, you know, but you know what I'm talking about.

You own the Brickland. It's a little rough with the way they made them. And he's like, no, no,

no, no, I know what I get. It is a funny joke for the whole rest of the tour. I had to keep

him cool over that guy. I go, I'm so sorry. I just need to keep my mouth shut sometimes.

Okay, we're going to do the same exercise from me come here with three cars. We've pulled the

price tag limit. I kept it within the reason these are not half a million dollars of cars.

These are not 10 million dollars of cars. These are cool though. And these are all kind of around

the $100,000 mark. So what do we have for the first and again, our goal is to buy all of these

and figure out which one of them we'll do well on next year. Okay. First one is

super cool. It's all in my boxes. It's a 63 Ford Galaxy 500 car code,

which is the 427 hypo four speed family odometer reads 31,000 miles, which for these hypo cars,

that's not uncommon because a lot of them were just drag racers. Every time I see a really,

really low mile high performance Chevrolet, you know, I automatically say, well, it's low mile

because that was a drag car. And then they restore it back to its stock form. Black interior,

black exterior has all the attitude 15 inch wheels with the dog fish hub caps. I love it.

What is the hammer for 100,000 100 came out of a well-known R code collection, assuming that the

car all lines up. Rarely do these have their original motors. I know that adds a lot of

intrinsic and material value to the cars. Doesn't speak to that here, but I'd love to have this car.

That's very cool. 63 is just a great looking car. It's kind of a whole in my Galaxy collection.

I've got a 61 hypo and I got a 62 XL. I've got a 64 XL and 65 XL. I'm missing a 63. Of course,

this isn't an XL. I wish it was even cooler to me if it was. We have for vehicle number two.

All right. I have one of the nicer collections of low mile and what I would call ultra low mile

Chevy and Ford pickups from the 70s and 80s. My father and I were way ahead of the curve,

which is why I could never just on principle alone. You will never see me in my NPD shirt,

make them or bear a Jackson or any auction, listing up my bidder number and bidding six

figures for a pickup truck. You'll never see me do that because I bought off online for mostly

four figures. But somebody did. 20 and 30 years ago. Dad and I, we did it when it was

a lot cheaper and I'm happy with what I've got and I'm not adding any trucks to my collection

for these kinds of prices. Everybody else is welcome to do it and I'm excited about it because it

just builds more of a frenzy around the pickup restoration market as well. But it's mind boggling

to me. This one's kind of a restored truck. It's got 80,000 miles on it. It's got to be mostly a

restoration, nicely done, all done to original. It's an 87 Silverado short bed four wheel drive

with a replacement. It's just a restoration. That's all it is.

New crate engine. 80,000 miles. New crate engine.

$115,000. That's what it sold for.

And that just makes me wonder. I've got a 1979 GMC. They called it the heavy half.

1979, it's got somewhere between three or 4,000 original miles on it, brand new. Still has

original tires on it. Big block 454 with every option. Air conditioning, power windows, power

door locks, the works. Two-tone maroon and red dynamite looking truck. And I just wondered myself,

if somebody was willing to pay $115,000 for this 87, I wonder what my 79 GMC would roll

across the block floor. And when I think about that, it just blows my mind. I start thinking to

myself that it could go over 200,000 towards a quarter million for a friggin pickup truck

that we honestly bought at auction back in the 90s for 7,000 bucks.

I don't know if this had a special history. I chose this because of the six-figure price for

just a restored 87 Chevy. But it did happen, Rick. Somebody did pay for this.

I don't know if this market maintains or if it continues to go crazier or if it pops like a

pimple. I have no idea. But I wouldn't, if I was looking at these vehicles from an investment

standpoint, I would not come anywhere close to paying this kind of money for a restored

late 80s Chevy pickup truck. What do we have for the number three here?

Also right around a hard thousand bucks. And I am admittedly in love with it. It's my favorite.

Yeah, 71 old 442 W30 hard top metallic blue shows 17,000 miles, but that's probably not original.

Four-speed car, 373 rear axle with the concerted center documentation. So it's a real car,

console, killer, killer, killer. Nice looking restoration.

I love it. And $106,700 email adjusting for inflation. These cars have been

consistent for a couple of decades now. They haven't gone up in value all that much. So they

grow for the 442 W30s. Look at what 70 to 72 GTO the judges and Ram air three and Ram air four

GTOs are bringing these days. I don't see any reason why the old mobiles aren't just as hot

performing. If not hotter, just as good looking, if not better looking, you get where I'm going.

If the GTOs are bringing high 100s to over 200 to $300,000, why couldn't a 442 W30 do the same?

I've always loved 68 to 72 cut losses. I always have. I've got a 74 442. It's not W30, but it's

got the Ram air hood option. And then I've got a 72 convertible. And I just love these cars.

And I think this one truly even at $106,000, this is, it looks to be a really blue chip,

finely done restoration. You're never going to go wrong with this car. In fact, I think there's

plenty of money to be made on this car. If you sit on it for three or four years,

if the market is going where it seems to be going again, the market is always cyclical.

I think we're about to see another upcycle. Between the three here in a year, the 63 Galaxy,

the 87 Chevy pickup or this 71 442 in a year, which one will work out best?

Probably the 442. I'd almost have to flip the coin because I want the 63 Galaxy just as much

because that's a great car too. So hard for me to choose, but if I'm just going to be cold and

calculated and say in a year, I've got to get rid of it and unload it, which one is going to be

easier to make a profit on probably the 442. Okay. Well, we'll find out in a year.

All good options and a fun January. I do think there's opportunity out there right now. It's

kind of weird when there's weird things happening with the dollar, what it does to our market.

Quality always seems to last and sell, but hey, before we go, Rick, a personal note for you.

You've had a medical procedure done and it was a medical procedure you let me know about.

I said, I don't even know what you're talking about. And you said, Google it.

So I did. You've had a, what's it called an inspire implant put in to help you not

need a CPAP machine anymore? Correct. Yes. Because I have really terrible

sleep apnea, my whatever score they call it, but it's a score that measures how many times you

stop breathing in an hour and mine is 64. So literally every minute of every night,

I stopped breathing and as years went by and I'm just feeling more and more fatigued and less

and less inclined to want to get out of bed in the morning. Cause I'm just exhausted.

I finally started to do something about it. And the first thing to do is to get a CPAP machine.

I've got friends and coworkers who also have the CPAP machines and they love theirs.

And they hooked up to all that gear and their tube and they sleep like a baby and they don't

know how they slept without. I got mine and I did not have that lovely experience and I did

not look forward to being hooked to a tube like I'm being cryogenically frozen and I'm on my way

to Mars. I changed positions when I sleep in the night and it was just a mess for me. So I just

stopped using it, but then of course I went back to my old ways of halted breathing, snoring,

driving my wife, absolutely bonkers and insane. I bit the bullet and I'm just trying the CPAP

implant and everybody I've heard of and everybody I've spoken with who have done it

does a change their life and it's the best thing they ever done. And I'll tell you what,

it's no joke. It's no small thing. It's not like you just go to the doctor and say,

hey, I want this and okay, let's schedule it up. And you just walk out with this gear

loaded into your body. It was an hour and 45 minutes on the operating table.

Prior to that, I had to go into the hospital to be put to sleep for an endoscopy so that they

could study, put cameras down my nose and through my throat and make sure I didn't have any other

conditions that would render this inspire thing kind of worthless because I've got

more than one problem going on, but I didn't. I was a perfect candidate. Everything went perfectly

on the operating table and my surgeon says, yeah, we test Rovia while you're still out

and it works perfect. And he said, we fired it up and your tongue moved forward and your airway

was unrestricted and this is going to work perfect for you. There's a lot of pain, big

two or three inch long incision in my chest and another one up on my neck and I did not have

a fun weekend, but now it's Wednesday and I'm feeling mostly human again. I've still got

an in and out headache and a little bit of discomfort when I'm eating, but it's so much

better than the way it was over the weekend that I'm just happy to be here. Is it like a

pacemaker or the battery ester be replaced every few years? How's this work? No, no, it's implanted.

The main generator is planted close to the right of your heart, but it's self regenerative.

And I think the reason that it can regenerate whereas the pacemaker can't as well is because

the pacemaker is going 24 seven forever and never rests. Whereas this inspire, you turn it on with

a remote control when you go to sleep at night and you turn it off when you wake up in the morning,

it has all day long to recharge. That's bonkers. And yeah, that's a weird technology because

it's recharging using you. You're the battery charger. Man alive. Yeah. I've got a generator

on my chest. I've got a lead with a sensor on it. It hooked to a wire that goes down

close to my lung to monitor my breathing. And then another lead that goes up my chest,

up my neck and up to the lower right of my jaw. That is an electrode that when you turn the

unit on it, socks and nerves that causes your tongue to involuntarily move forward a little bit

enough to open your airways to fix all your problems. Yeah. So it's pretty wild. When I first

decided I was going to do it, a lot of people research things real deeply before they take the

plunge. I just like heard the ads on talk radio. I was like, yeah, that's for me. I'm going to do

this. I didn't realize what I was getting myself into. By the time I'm all going to be all said

done, it's like a half year journey of appointments and sleep studies and having to go in for the

endoscopy, then the surgery and then the follow ups. And then we have to calibrate this thing for

two or three weeks of gently moving it up and power and up and power until we get just to the

right level where it's not too much to be uncomfortable and just right for me to have

a good night's sleep. So there's a lot to it, but we'll keep everybody posted. I'll be your

guinea pig for the next two or three months to see how things progress. Well, I read the symptoms

and it said, here's why you get one. Like if you're irritable, grumpy, short tempered. And I thought,

I could make a joke about this. I'm not going to. I think Rick will love it.

Rick's honest takes are actually just fueled by lack of sleep, turns out so irritable. Are you

talking about me or are you talking about my wife? Oh, nothing, nothing. She's been super irritable

for many years now because she can't get a good night's sleep with all of my snoring at one time.

And that's no joke. Yeah. Give the report in. I don't know for a fact that a lot of our audience

has this issue, but I certainly know a lot of people in my life that do indeed have CPAP machine.

That's a real thing. Not being able to breathe at night is a pretty big problem. So let's keep

Thank you, Rick. Excellent as always. Okay, that is it for this week. And that's it for the next

two weeks. I'll be back in two weeks. But between now and then hit me up on Facebook or Instagram

anytime. Be sure to subscribe to us on Apple podcast, Spotify, and yes, YouTube. And you can

always find each and every show plus all the merch on the homepage of themusclecarplace.com website.

And as always, don't forget to keep chasing your dreams like you've let me chase mine.

Get well burn. And everybody watch Dallas on us legends cars.TV. Help me out and please share

his socials. Would you please do that? Man, that would mean a lot to me. I hope you could do that.

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Oh my God, it's broken.

TMCP #639: Ask Rick! Mecum Kissimmee Shockers — Is the Muscle Car Market Hot or Cooling?

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