Wednesday Before Amelia 2023
I left Moorehead City NC at 5:30am and ripped down the highway so I could make it to Amelia Island to inspect a car. 8 hours later, I rolled onto the grounds of Bonhams near the Fernandina Beach Airport with plenty of time to spare. I was trying my best not to get a speeding ticket, but I was walking a very fine line of excessive speed!
The car was a 1966 Ferrari 330GT 2+2 and it had extensive receipts from a well known shop. They had for some reason repainted the car after the previous owner bought the car at another auction. Some mechanical work was recently done, but not by the previous shop. I’ve been trying to help my customer buy a SII 330, and he really liked this color combination. He flew in to see the car earlier in the day, but I couldn’t make it to Bonhams in time to inspect the car at the same time because I was en route from NC. After I arrived, I managed to record my inspection on video and sent the report to the customer so he could view it at his leisure and discuss a bidding strategy.
My customer ended up winning the car at auction the next day at $318,500 including the commission. I felt it was well bought, and wish him luck!
Next to the 330 was another “Ferrari” that had some notoriety. It was the rebodied Corvette that was pretending to be a Cal Spyder in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” In the Ferrari world, no matter how famous this replicar was, I didn’t see any of us spending good money for this car. I certainly wouldn’t, but then again, I’ve never been start struck!
The winning bid for this car was $313K, which wasn’t too far from my customer’s 330GT he bought at the same auction, but the difference is who you would end up attracting at a car show or the next Cars and Coffee. The 330 owner would be speaking to people who appreciate Vintage Ferraris, and the sounds of a V-12 Ferrari, while the Replica owner will be surrounded by people quoting lines from the movie! “Bueller,…Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?”…I’ll take the real car.
I ran into two friends at Bonhams that are pretty important in the Vintage Ferrari world. Colleen Sheehan is Mike Sheehan’s daughter and has really made a name for herself working for her father’s Car Brokering Business Ferraris Online to the next level. She’s got a great YouTube channel and seems to effortlessly get more views than my channel (not that there’s any competition!) I think she’s perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between the older collectors and the newer younger collectors getting into Feraris. Next to Colleen is Anthony Stella, from Gullwing Motorcars. Anthony holds down the fort in NY while his boss Peter Kumar is travelling and buying up all the available collector car inventory around the country. He’s a good foil to Peter’s go-go personality and if you call Gullwing Motorcars, you’ll probably get Anthony on the phone.
After Bonhams, I checked into the rental house on Fernandina Beach. This is the second year I’ve shared this house with friends of mine. My friend Drew Garban gets the credit for reserving the house, and offering me a room in this 7 bedroom house. My housemates come from all over the country and have a wide variety of car experiences and collections, so you can imagine the conversations we’re having at the house day and night!