So how’s Barrett-Jackson? About like it is on TV, only keener. I was there all day Tuesday. That night in Phoenix I bored my daughter Polly to tears watching B-J live on Speed, saying “I saw that car,” and “Oh, that one too!” Wednesday night, back in Tucson, I did the same thing to Donna. So far none of the cars I photographed have come up for auction, so they didn’t have to hear me say “Look! I took a shot of that one!” That’ll probably happen tonight . . . ah, I suddenly understand why Donna felt it was so important to go visit friends tonight.
Donna probably would have enjoyed walking around the B-J grounds, and next year I’ll try to talk her into going with me. The venue — Westworld in Scottsdale — is enormous, the size of a respectable state fair or small military base. In addition to the auction hall itself, which contained three display wings packed with cars, vendors, food & drink courts, even boats and aircraft, there were five football-field-plus-sized tents covering the cars and trucks up for auction, not to mention outdoor vendors, food stands, and displays. A miniature Las Vegas for car collectors and gearheads.
B-J caters to boomers. My fellow gawkers were old, flabby, under-dressed . . . I felt right at home. Except for not having any money. Which you would need to buy anything at B-J, down to and including bottled water ($4). I didn’t see any famous people — no Jay Lenos or Orange County Chopper guys — but I saw Amy Whats-Her-Face, the semi-famous and attractive B-J bidders’ assistant (B-J’s secret weapon, deployed only when high rollers start to bid) from a distance, and heard her sing the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of the auction. I was obscurely disappointed to discover she has a twangy Texas accent. I used to love Texas and Texans, but a series of sucker punches delivered by Bush, Enron, Halliburton, and Big Oil have left me rather short of breath.
I was happy just to be near all that beautiful machinery. I had hoped to see some restored orphan cars — Nashes, Kaisers, Hudsons — but there were only a few Studebakers and Packards mixed in among all the Big Three iron. The collectors are buying up muscle cars from the 60s and 70s, and the tents were full of them, but I’m interested in older stuff. I’ll start with a few radiators, nameplates, and radiator caps:
Over time, radiators and radiator caps evolved into grilles and hood ornaments:
Some of the most memorable features of 1950s cars included . . .
A couple of other things that caught my eye:
I spent the evening sneezing and blowing my nose at Polly’s apartment in Phoenix (she has two cats and a parrot). Here we are at a restaurant near her place:
Sure, Barrett-Jackson is over-hyped, arguably evil: by driving prices of modest antiques, the kind once collected by middle-income enthusiasts — old motorcycles, Ford Model As, Cold War-era Bulgemobiles, even humble milk vans and utility trucks — up into Donald Trump territory, B-J and its clones have ruined the collector car hobby for regular people. But the cars themselves, even though I can’t aspire to ever owning one, are still there, and B-J is a great place to see them. I’ll be there next year!