Buy What You Love, Pay What You Should
Columns
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Fast Times at Collector High
The market has doubled and in some cases doubled again, and when this happens, a readjustment is on the way You can see it in the classified ads: This is a wild time. I can remember issues of Hemmings that didn’t have a single 356 Speedster for sale, yet today, several appear. I have never…
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The Unaffordable Classic
A dead DS that has settled to the bottom of the suspension travel is likely to become part of the fossil record at precisely the spot where it died {vsig}2008-10_2230{/vsig} The introduction of the Citroën DS19 at the Paris Motor Show in 1955 had all the drama of Klaatu’s flying saucer landing in Washington, DC…
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1962 Gulf Oil 327/360 FI Race Car
Grady Davis’s Gulf Oil Racing Team purchased this Corvette in 1962 from Yenko Chevrolet, and the car was campaigned by the “Flying Dentist,” Dr. Dick Thompson, in the 1962 SCCA A-Production Class. The Corvette was sold at the end of the 1962 season to Tony Denman, who successfully raced the car through 1963, finishing second…
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1965 396/425 Convertible
When the new-for-1963 Sting Ray was introduced, it is unlikely that its creators understood the impact it would make on the automotive world. Long considered a modern classic, the Sting Ray was an unqualified success, outselling the 1962 models by 48%. Meanwhile, a second shift was added at the St. Louis assembly plant to meet…
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James Garner’s 1968 L88 AIR Race Car
Three factory-built Corvette L88s left the St. Louis plant for delivery to James Garner’s Los Angeles-based American International Racing (AIR) team in November 1967. These Le Mans Blue convertibles were the first production models featuring the new L88 engine with first-generation closed-chamber aluminum heads. The cars were actually picked up at Gene Jantzen Chevrolet in…
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1992 Lingenfelter ZR-1
The catalog notes on the 1992 turquoise ZR-1 that sold at Mecum’s Bloomington Gold auction in June were brief to the point of terse, but they said everything that needed to be said: “Lingenfelter 475 hp package, 3.92 performance gears, Borla SS exhaust, Wilwood 6-piston brakes, FX3 suspension, dual removable roofs, complete maintenance records, well-maintained…
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1998 Indianapolis Pace Car Convertibles
The 1997 model year remains the single most radically changed Corvette in history. Even with the transition from the C1 to the C2 in 1963 and the C3 to the C4 in 1984, the same engines were carried over from previous years. But with the introduction of the C5, everything was new—frame, body, engine, and…
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SCM at 20-Now a Survivor®
In 1988, I had just finished a stint as a sales manager for Ferrari dealer Ron Tonkin at his Portland Gran Turismo store, and was beginning to sell collector cars, by the container-full, to the then-hot European market. While at the GT store, I had discovered Gerald Roush’s Ferrari Market Letter, the grandfather of all…
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1956 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe
At its launch, the 300SL cost more than twice the price of a Jaguar XK 140. Today, it’s worth about four times as much Mercedes-Benz returned to postwar competition in 1952, fielding two of its new 300SL (W194) sports cars in the Mille Miglia. The pair finished a creditable 2nd and 4th overall in this…
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1956 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe
Mercedes-Benz returned to postwar competition in 1952, fielding two of its new 300SL (W194) sports cars in the Mille Miglia. The pair finished a creditable 2nd and 4th overall in this most difficult of events, and the promising start was followed up by a win in the challenging La Carrera Panamericana. The Works first raced…