SCOTTSDALE, Arizona, (January 21, 2009) –- Russo and Steele Collector Automobiles, one of the nation’s premier collector car auctions, specializing in European sports cars, American muscle cars, hot rods and customs, announces remarkable results despite current economic uncertainty.
Its 9th Annual Scottsdale Auction Event reports total results of $17.1 million and a 48% sale rate; these totals represent a true and honest representation of the current market. Due to Russo and Steele’s ALL RESERVE platform, owner buybacks are eliminated and not reported in total sales, allowing Russo and Steele to generate the most accurate representation of the current collector hobby.
These results represent the preliminary numbers for Scottsdale 2009. Currently, there are significant post-sales that are being finalized and will be included in the final reports. Scottsdale’s outcome exemplifies Russo and Steele’s status as a leading collector automobile auction event. Prepared for a slight wane in its total numbers as a direct effect of its decision to convert to an ALL RESERVE platform, the co-owner and CEO of Russo and Steele commented on the outcome like this: “I knew that our ALL RESERVE platform would affect the total sales and sales rate percentage when I chose to implement this change. However, Russo and Steele is now the one true representation of the current market by eliminating owner buybacks. In addition, I believe that the platform was worth a few percentage points in the sales rate to provide our clients with a fair, level playing field. Clearly our platform benefited our marketplace by producing the highest level of quality inventory and the lowest level of change in total sales, by half, when compared to other auctions.”
The top sales of the 2009 Scottsdale auction were a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing $660,000, a 1964 Shelby Cobra CSX 2519 $495,000, a 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda – ‘Nicolas Cage’ $440,000, a 1962 Pontiac Catalina $412,525, and the 1937 Cord 812 Supercharged Phaeton $401,500.
The Scottsdale 2009 auction event, January 14-18, 2009, was held in over 240,000 square feet of tents at the intersection of the Loop 101 Freeway and Scottsdale Road, in North Scottsdale.
For further information, or full sales results from the “Sports and Muscle in Scottsdale” event please visit www.russoandsteele.com.