Another VanDerBrink "Barn find" auction

[craig71188]

This time in Iowa, makes you wonder what else is still out there...

https://www.vanderbrinkauctions.com/auction/muscle-car-heaven-the-coyote-johnson-collection-auction/

 

The story from the announcement letter:

 

Hi,

I am proud to announce an amazing auction coming up Sept. 14th, 2019 in Red Oak, Iowa. We were doing an auction last year in Griswold, IA and a man came up to me and said, "Hey, would you like to come look at my collection? I'd like to show it to you." Well, I was pretty dirty and tired, but wasn't going to pass the chance to look at a collection.

The location didn't GPS and got lost. Soon I drove up a winding path up into the trees. The place was like a giant treehouse and a narrow path to building and a house. Coyote Johnson, was a mild mannered guy that had a fat yellow lab going with him everywhere. Daisy, was the dog's name. We walked up to the 1st building and he unlocked the door to a building full of dust covered Muscle Cars. Every color of the rainbow. Mopars, Chevelles, GTO's, Firebirds, Camaros, and more. We went from building to building and it was much more of the same. American Muscle frozen in time.

Coyote, told me that I was the 1st one that he had showed the collection to in over 40 years! Even his family didn't know what he had stored in the buildings. He is a contractor, by trade, and had built the buildings basically around and for the cars. It appeared to be so. WE talked for a while over a couple beers, and I asked him what he wanted to do. This was July and it would be December before he decided to sell the collection. Coyote still has his High School Roadrunner that his Mom bought for him. He is keeping this and about 11 other vehicles. Just can't let go of all of them. I don't blame him. The collection will be sold NO Reserve and brought to the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Red Oak, IA.

It's going to be amazing. 12 Road Runners, Challengers, Cudas, Camaros, GTO's, Firebirds, Tri-Fives, and much more. We have cleaned them all up and pictures taken. Inventory will be up soon with the catalog. You won't want to miss this one. Time to buy back your Glory Days.

[BuckeyeROC]

Nice collection! That's freaking awesome.

[Geeto67]

Muscle Car Hoard is the appropriate thing to call this "collection".

 

It's hoards like this that reaffirm my belief that the "muscle car" market is grossly overinflated. Very few of these cars were ever really "rare", they just appeared rare because people with lots of land, a little money, and making irrational financial decisions decided it was more important for them to let it sit in a barn then someone else get use out of it. I'm glad a lot of these auctions are happening because maybe it will give regular people a chance to own fun cars again without worrying about them like they are a 401K.

[iwashmycar]

Maybe they werent rare, but 50 years is a long ass time for steel and rubber. They are not getting cheaper.

[BuckeyeROC]

Maybe they werent rare, but 50 years is a long ass time for steel and rubber. They are not getting cheaper.

 

Neither are new cars. They are getting crazy expensive.

[Geeto67]

Maybe they werent rare, but 50 years is a long ass time for steel and rubber. They are not getting cheaper.

 

actually they are, because like any market there is ebb and flow. I believe for the 1950's cars peak value has already been hit, the prices have been on a slow decline for at least the last 20 years, caused by both inflation erosion and demand in the marketplace. My family has a 1957 fuelie corvette (early posi car) and at one time (1999-2000) that was almost a $200K car, not if they could pull $125K out of it they would be considered lucky.

 

the musclecar aftermarket is huge, you can get almost anything you want from complete shells to every rubber part for the majority of the popular and semi-popular cars. It's harder to get parts for a 1967 tempest or a lemans (of which they made half a million of) as compared to a 1967 GTO of which they made 86,000.

[Otis Nice]

Muscle Car Hoard is the appropriate thing to call this "collection".

 

It's hoards like this that reaffirm my belief that the "muscle car" market is grossly overinflated. Very few of these cars were ever really "rare", they just appeared rare because people with lots of land, a little money, and making irrational financial decisions decided it was more important for them to let it sit in a barn then someone else get use out of it. I'm glad a lot of these auctions are happening because maybe it will give regular people a chance to own fun cars again without worrying about them like they are a 401K.

 

Is your GTO a "muscle car"?

[Geeto67]

Is your GTO a "muscle car"?

 

By most popular metrics, yes. Some would say the 64-67 GTO's are the original muscle car, and this being the internet others would argue with that citing the J2 olds, the 57 fuelie chevrolets, and a host of other cars that came before 1964 (by the way they were called "supercars" until the late 70's - the name muscle car originated in a similar way to the way we call lifted trucks bro-dozers). But I digress....

 

The value of my GTO and GTO's in general are interesting to track. In the 1990's, despite there having been a spike in muscle car prices in the late 1980's the more common stuff like SS396 325hp cars and 335hp GTO's just weren't worth much. I paid $600 for my 1967 SS396 roller in 1994, $3000 for my running Goat in 1997, and I passed on 1969 RA III vert GTO in 1996 for $4000. Right about 1997-2004 musclecars took another big leap in prices and my beat to heck GTO ended up being worth about $16K still needed bodywork and $20-25K being the price for a nice, clean, show worthy common (335hp) GTO. Then the financial crisis happened and well the value of a lot of toys tanked for a while. Right now, a show worthy pristine HO GTO is worth about $45K, more pedestrian 335hp cars in the same condition change hands for about $35K, indicating that the cars kept up with inflation (roughly 2% a year for 10 years) , but didn't grow a heck of a lot.

 

Other cars I track lost a little bit of money, people were paying stupid money for show worth 1969 z/28's right before the financial crisis ($150K+), but I see some changing hands for below $100K, same with midyear big block corvettes, etc...

 

To be honest though, the talking about money thing when it comes to these cars wears me out. At one point it seemed important to know where I stood in the car so I wasn't throwing good money after bad, but that this point - I'd rather just be using the damn thing (esp since I can't). When I was driving it I remember having a lot of conversations with people about wishing they could afford to have one and I used to have this shitty attitude about "well if you want it make sacrifices for it" but the older I get my opinion has changed a little to I wish more people had the chance to own these without having to treat it as precious as a house or a stock portfolio.