Barrett-Jackson looks down the road at collector cars.
Chad Graham
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 6, 2006 12:00 AM
Much has been written about the eye-popping sales brought by the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction held annually in Scottsdale and West Palm Beach, Fla.
This year, for example, a 1970 Hemi 'Cuda convertible sold for $2.16 million.
What kind of car, sold today, would make for a good future investment?
"I just bought a Ford GT," said Craig Jackson, president and chief executive officer of the auction house started by his father and a business partner in the 1960s. "It's got a great history, and they're not making that many of them."
Jackson, 47, who made headlines last month after buying Paul McCartney's first guitar for nearly $620,000, said collector-car sales continues to grow rapidly as baby boomers retire and come into inheritance money.
He's working to expand the Barrett-Jackson brand to consumers who are new to the collectible market through a long-time deal with the Speed Channel Cable Network, the Barrett-Jackson Experience magazine and various licensing deals.
What does the future hold for the company? Jackson answered a half-dozen questions on the subject for The Arizona Republic:
Question: The boomers are buying collectible cars, but will younger generations have the same passion?
Answer: This year at the auction we did the "Family Value Day," which I found real eye-opening. There was no auction going on, but we had all the cars there and all the vendors. I had no idea of how many people would show up and estimated 3,000 to 5,000. We had 12,000 paid adults and 15,000 kids.
My business partner and I were walking through a field and we heard two 10-year-olds talking about whether a Shelby is a real Shelby or a clone. We go up to the kids, who recognize us from TV, and they said, 'We've been watching you since we were kids.' So, they're learning.
Q: Is there any danger this frenzied market will collapse?
A: There are 77 million baby boomers and there are roughly 660 Hemi 'Cuda convertibles and coupes; a little more than the number of Dusenbergs. Think of how many thousands of guys would like to own one.
The only time our market has had a downside is when a whole lot of people got into it who had no love for the cars and that was in the late 1980s and 1990s. There was a lot of speculation and a lot of people who jumped out of the market and started treating the cars as commodities.
Q: Where is future growth going to come from?
A: I'm going to do more in the media, merchandise and knowledge area. I've got a very good game plan laid out for the next few years, and I'm very bullish on it. We know how our customers are wired, what they like and what they're looking forward to.
Q: What is the most pressing issue facing the auction house?
A: Me being able to grow it as fast as the demand is. That's why I've hired a COO, in-house business development and counsel to take those jobs off my back and allow me to be CEO. It allows me not to be there in the trenches every day and allow them to go out and build the management infrastructure that I need.
Q: How has the business grown in 2006?
A: This year so far we did $135 million in car sales, plus the other revenue. We're about at about $145 million in revenues. We get the majority of business done in the first two quarters when the auctions occur. In 2005, we were at about $100 million.
We are growing pretty substantially, but we're growing in a methodical way. We're adding more days to Florida, adding more days to the Scottsdale event. Florida has doubled every year in size. This year we had 1,200 bidders and we did $35 million in sales. It took us 32 years to get to that point in Scottsdale, where we did 48 registered bidders and $100 million in sales in January at the one event.
Q: What do you plan to do with Paul McCartney's first guitar?
A: This is really the guitar that's really at the crux of the start of the Beatles. It'll probably spend most of its time in the safe, but I'm going to loan it to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Chad Graham
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 6, 2006 12:00 AM
Much has been written about the eye-popping sales brought by the Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction held annually in Scottsdale and West Palm Beach, Fla.
This year, for example, a 1970 Hemi 'Cuda convertible sold for $2.16 million.
What kind of car, sold today, would make for a good future investment?
"I just bought a Ford GT," said Craig Jackson, president and chief executive officer of the auction house started by his father and a business partner in the 1960s. "It's got a great history, and they're not making that many of them."
Jackson, 47, who made headlines last month after buying Paul McCartney's first guitar for nearly $620,000, said collector-car sales continues to grow rapidly as baby boomers retire and come into inheritance money.
He's working to expand the Barrett-Jackson brand to consumers who are new to the collectible market through a long-time deal with the Speed Channel Cable Network, the Barrett-Jackson Experience magazine and various licensing deals.
What does the future hold for the company? Jackson answered a half-dozen questions on the subject for The Arizona Republic:
Question: The boomers are buying collectible cars, but will younger generations have the same passion?
Answer: This year at the auction we did the "Family Value Day," which I found real eye-opening. There was no auction going on, but we had all the cars there and all the vendors. I had no idea of how many people would show up and estimated 3,000 to 5,000. We had 12,000 paid adults and 15,000 kids.
My business partner and I were walking through a field and we heard two 10-year-olds talking about whether a Shelby is a real Shelby or a clone. We go up to the kids, who recognize us from TV, and they said, 'We've been watching you since we were kids.' So, they're learning.
Q: Is there any danger this frenzied market will collapse?
A: There are 77 million baby boomers and there are roughly 660 Hemi 'Cuda convertibles and coupes; a little more than the number of Dusenbergs. Think of how many thousands of guys would like to own one.
The only time our market has had a downside is when a whole lot of people got into it who had no love for the cars and that was in the late 1980s and 1990s. There was a lot of speculation and a lot of people who jumped out of the market and started treating the cars as commodities.
Q: Where is future growth going to come from?
A: I'm going to do more in the media, merchandise and knowledge area. I've got a very good game plan laid out for the next few years, and I'm very bullish on it. We know how our customers are wired, what they like and what they're looking forward to.
Q: What is the most pressing issue facing the auction house?
A: Me being able to grow it as fast as the demand is. That's why I've hired a COO, in-house business development and counsel to take those jobs off my back and allow me to be CEO. It allows me not to be there in the trenches every day and allow them to go out and build the management infrastructure that I need.
Q: How has the business grown in 2006?
A: This year so far we did $135 million in car sales, plus the other revenue. We're about at about $145 million in revenues. We get the majority of business done in the first two quarters when the auctions occur. In 2005, we were at about $100 million.
We are growing pretty substantially, but we're growing in a methodical way. We're adding more days to Florida, adding more days to the Scottsdale event. Florida has doubled every year in size. This year we had 1,200 bidders and we did $35 million in sales. It took us 32 years to get to that point in Scottsdale, where we did 48 registered bidders and $100 million in sales in January at the one event.
Q: What do you plan to do with Paul McCartney's first guitar?
A: This is really the guitar that's really at the crux of the start of the Beatles. It'll probably spend most of its time in the safe, but I'm going to loan it to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
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