Buy What You Love, Pay What You Should
Keith Martin
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Keith’s Blog: See You in Florida!
It’s roadtrip time for me again. It’s a good thing I like cars, as my next two weeks are going to be full of them. Put Amelia Island weekend, Auctions America in Ft. Lauderdale and What’s My Car Worth into a mixing bowl, and you end up with a ticket on Delta that leaves Portland…
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A Collector-Car Catechism
At times, the SCM offices resemble an automotive confessional. Emails, texts, Facebook postings, faxes and sometimes even old-school, hand-written letters flood in — each missive asking for collector-car absolution or permission. “Dear SCM, please forgive me as I have sinned and bought a car over the Internet without seeing it in person… again.” “Keith, I…
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Keith’s Blog: Does Having a Correct Engine Matter in an Affordable Classic?
First of all, this whole discussion is really the fault of Miles Collier, columnist for SCM and provocateur extraordinaire when it comes to making collectors actually think about what they are doing when they buy and sell old cars. Prior to meeting Miles, my criteria were simple: I can afford it, and I’ve never had…
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Sell Keith Your Duetto
Last year I put out a call that I was looking for a 1967 Alfa Duetto and got several responses. Just as I was getting ready to pull the trigger, a tidy 1967 Giulia Super showed up on the radar. I couldn’t have both, so I took the four-door (to the delight of my six-year-old)…
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Keith’s Blog: Is Paris the New Scottsdale?
The old car scene in Paris is heating up. Last year there were just two auctions in Paris during Rétromobile week: Bonhams and Artcurial. This year there were four, with RM joining the fray, and Artcurial adding an additional auction featuring a collection of Alfa Romeos. Furthermore, the annual SCM reception has grown into a fixture…
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Keith’s Blog: How I Almost Bought a Bastard AC Aceca
Strange things can happen to you at auctions. While shooting new episodes of “What’s My Car Worth” at Barrett-Jackson, one car, of the 1,405 there, caught my eye. Let’s not forget that what defines B-J is the acres and acres of highly polished, overly chromed, customized, raised or slammed, modified and stock American cars. So when I…
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Grooming the Young Collectors
There’s no question that America’s love affair with the car has changed dramatically. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal regularly report on the decline of numbers of driver’s licenses among young people, of fewer miles being driven and declining sales figures of new cars. This lack of interest in driving is even more…
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Keith’s Blog: A Two-Alfa Day, But Where’s the Volvo?
This afternoon is a big day. I’m driving the 1958 Sprint Veloce Confortevole (SVC) to Jefferson, Oregon, picking up the Giulia Super and driving both cars back, with the help of Michael Pierce. (I’m sure the Sprint will be a completely different experience from Pierce’s 1967 427/435 Corvette roadster.) Since putting in the new fuel…
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Keith’s Blog: Scottsdale 2014 — A Myopic Perspective
The 2014 collector car market has launched. Today all the bidders are gone, and the temporary tents are starting to come down. The trashcans are full of discarded promotional items, bidders’ paddles and parking passes. The busiest guys in Arizona have to be the collector car transporters, as they load thousands of cars for their…
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Keith’s Blog: Ferrari 375-plus, Arizona Concours and the Boneyard Tour
I’m sitting in a pickup truck headed west on Interstate 10, headed to the Pima Air & Space Museum. After a day fawning over the first-rate automobiles at the inaugural Arizona Concours, I expect seeing acres of mothballed F-16s to be something completely different. Just four days ago, I went to the tony Bonhams world…