Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Cruisin’ the Coast, Building an Empire: Inside Vicari Auto Auctions

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Cruisin’ the Coast, Building an Empire: Inside Vicari Auto Auctions · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all
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over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors,
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designers, and everything in between.
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Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder, a.
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How did they get that job or become that person?
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The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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Our guests love for cars.
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Started at a young age when he bought his first classic car, a 1940 Ford
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Coupe for just $20 working alongside his brothers-in-law to restore it.
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He got hooked on classic car ownership and restoration.
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His passion for Corvettes was ignited when he traded in a sensible
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Oldsmobile for a 66 Corvette convertible during his college years.
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However, he had to sell it when family responsibilities called.
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Pete Akari became heavily involved in the auto auction scene, starting
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with local sponsorship, and eventually establishing the Akari Auction Company.
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Today the company employs professional auctioneers and holds annual auctions
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in conjunction with events like Cruise in the coast, and he's here with
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us tonight to tell us all about it.
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With that, let's welcome Pete Vicar to break fix, along with my co-host William
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Ross from the Exotic Car Marketplace.
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How y'all doing guys?
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Good to be with y'all.
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Thanks.
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We appreciate it.
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Well, like all good break fix stories.
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Let's talk about the who, what, when and where of Pete Akari.
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Let's go back to those early memories.
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How were you turned into a car lover, especially a fan of Corvettes.
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I have two older sisters.
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We lived on a lot of acreage and on Sundays, My sisters would
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barbecue for their friends.
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Well, her friends boyfriends came over and it was like a car show every Sunday
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at my house with all these badass cops.
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And because I was younger and they had boyfriends coming around the time, let's
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say mid sixties, you know, maybe 64 to 70.
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So all the American muscle cars, they had some really bad cars.
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I mean, they had three 90 Mustangs.
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One of 'em had a boss, 4 29 Mustang.
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Like one of 'em had a 65 Belvedere that he ordered brand new.
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And listen to this guys.
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It was a 4 26 lightweight four speed car.
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And then when my brother-in-law got married to my sister, my
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dad made him sell the car.
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'cause he said, you're not gonna put my daughter in
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potentially a family in that car.
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I begged my daddy to buy it and put it in the warehouse and he wouldn't.
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Years later, we were outta sale on one sold for like $400,000.
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He said, I wish I'd listened to you.
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That's how I started because of the influence from my older sister's
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boyfriends within, they got married and then they went about brother-in-laws, but.
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From that, you know, it was on, once I bought my first car and my brother-in-laws
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helped me with the 44, we tore it all apart, repainted it, put a 2 83 in it
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with automatic, and within about two months I was 15 years old driving in the
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neighborhood without a driver's license.
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But anyway, it was fun back then.
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So do, uh, your brother-in-law still have a lot of cars?
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Are they still having stuff like that or toys or they kind of go
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the path where they had to get rid of 'em 'cause of family?
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No, they older now they're in their almost eighties and you know,
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they drool over stuff like that.
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But you know, they don't have cars anymore.
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I'm the only nut that still does it.
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Quite honestly, at one point in my life, my collection was
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almost 70 cars, all Corvettes.
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You know, it just got to be too much and I sold 'em to a
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friend of mine, most of them.
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But I kept a lot of the rare stuff starting out with that early
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Ford and some of the other cars.
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You gravitated toward Corvette very quickly.
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Why the C two?
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Why the 66 in particular?
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Why the stingray?
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What drove you to the car and how did you end up with your first
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one, and how did that turn into a lifelong passion for Corvettes?
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I was at my dad's office one day and a friend of his there had, I wanna
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say, a a 69 or 74 door Oldsmobile.
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Big thing, I mean, a big lanyard thing.
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And he heard I was going to college the next week and he says, look,
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I want to give you this car.
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As a graduation.
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I was taking it to trade in 'cause my wife don't like it.
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It was a brand new car it was too big for, and my dad said, no indeed not Bob.
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I can't let you give that card to my son.
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He turned to me and he said, how much money you got in your pocket?
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I might have had a hundred dollars on me.
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He said, give it to me.
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It's your call.
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I didn't want to go to college in that.
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Well anyway, I ended up with the car and ne very next weekend when I was
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coming home from college on a used car lot with just 66 carve 3 75 horse
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car, automatic four speed, $1,200 on the windshield matching number car.
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Now, back then we, who knew about matching numbers, anything like that?
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So I pull in there and I didn't know what I was really buying.
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All I knew was a 66 Corvette convertible with two tops.
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I told the guy, I said, look, I'll trade you even up.
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I'll give you this call for the Corvette, because I was like
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a hundred dollars on the call.
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So he said, okay, good, good deal.
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So we go in, we getting ready to do the paperwork.
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He looks at the title, well, I didn't know it, but the guy was a friend of my dad.
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He looks at my name and he says, I can't do this deal.
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And I said, why?
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He said, because your call is worth twice what you want and your dad's
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gonna be upset with me if I do this.
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So, and the guy was being honest, he wasn't taking
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advantage of a 17 year old kid.
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I left there, I went to my girlfriend's house.
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My girlfriend's daddy said to me that week, he liked the car.
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So I told him, I said, you wanna buy this car?
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Gimme $1,500.
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He took $1,500, gave it to me.
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I sold him that car and I went and bought the carve for 1200.
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That's how I ended up with it.
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That's what started it.
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And man, 60 something Corvettes.
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Later.
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I've got some of the rarest Corvettes around prototype Corvettes.
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I wanna ask one of our more popular, what we call pit stop questions, and
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that's the sexiest car of all time.
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Question for you.
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Is that the Corvette, is that specifically let's say the C two, one of the other
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Corvettes, or is there something else out there that you're like, wow,
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that's a really good looking car?
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I like my Corvettes.
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Okay.
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I will say that, but I do have a replica of a 1957 Bugatti Atlantis.
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My wife and I drove in the great race, the cross country race.
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I used to sponsor that.
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I can't go anywhere with that car.
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People follow me.
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They're on the side of me.
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If I go to a gas station, I'm there for 20, 30 minutes
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telling people about the car.
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It was a hit through the whole race, and that I think is one of
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the coolest looking cars, you know?
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But I still love my vets.
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I will say that.
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So you've lived through almost the entire evolution of the Corvette.
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If you kind of think about it and you look over it's long history.
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It's celebrating 70 years this year.
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Yes.
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Of all the Corvettes, which is the best, and what do you think of the new C eight?
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Well, the best Corvette to me is the C twos.
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I like the midyear.
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I did have a few L 89, covets 69, but the midyears are the
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are one I like now the C eight.
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Believe me, I think GM knocked it out the park on that for
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the money for what you get.
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That is a great call.
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I just can't see me owning a new Corvette, though.
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I sold 'em in our auction and I tell people all the time, they're great,
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but I got a bad back and I can't get in and out of 'em like I used to.
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Do you think Corvette should have gone mid-engine earlier?
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Do you think it was a little late waiting to the eighth
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generation to put it out there?
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I think so.
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Yeah.
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It should have came out a little earlier.
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Hey, they knocked it out the park.
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I really think they're great.
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Cause all my customers, they end up buying 'em.
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They love it.
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I have a nice lady that bought one kind of when she bought it at the
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auction, when it sold, I turned and gave her a hundred dollars outta my
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pocket and she said, what's this for?
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I said, that's towards your first ticket.
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She, her husband came back a few minutes later, he gave me a hundred
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dollars back and said, if she gets a ticket, this call's coming back to you.
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But she's been good.
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I've seen her lately, and she hasn't got a ticket.
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They did a great job on that.
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You don't hear many negative comments of reviews on that ca
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as we're coming out with the subsequent upgraded models, you know.
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They're just improving on it that much more.
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And yeah, it's a fabulous looking car.
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I haven't had the opportunity to drive one yet.
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I'd love to, but yeah, it actually knocked it outta the park with that.
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They did.
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The Corvette really is a Swiss army knife.
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It caters to everybody.
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If you want a sports car, you want a show car, you wanna a
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race car, it could do it all.
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And it's proven it time and time again.
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I mean, when you look at the Corvette's history, it's absolutely amazing.
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There's very few cars.
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Think the nine 11 and a couple others are in that same category where
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it's pretty much in every person.
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And every motorsport type of vehicle where you can find a Corvette out
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there, no matter what the situation is, you can look at the price.
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A normal guy can afford it, you know?
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Exactly.
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Sometimes there's a storm cloud in every story.
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And you being from the deeper south, especially in the New Orleans area, we
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all remember Hurricane Katrina being a car collector, I'm sure there was,
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you know, an impact you, there's a lot of devastation in the area, especially
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in the French Quarter, et cetera.
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How did Hurricane Katrina impact you and your business and your collection,
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and how did you bounce back from that?
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The neighbor's building fell onto my building.
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My car survived.
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The insurance company came in.
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There was no damage to 'em, but they all got soaked and wet because the
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block wall just stripped my wall off, but my structure was up, so
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it just rained in there for days.
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The worst part about that whole ordeal was.
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On the wall that got damaged, I had built the 1988 Republican
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convention, and at the end of the convention there was a flag drop.
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That was when the fireworks went off.
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This big flag fell out of the ceiling of the dome.
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That flag was on the wall and it just got ripped to shreds.
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That's the worst part of that.
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And my buddy Henry Shane's collection was the same thing.
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I mean, he had 54 Buick sky locks where beams just fell right on top of the cars.
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He had a boss 4 29 that got damaged also.
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But Katrina was a devastating storm.
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A lot of people lost their lives.
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There's a lot of property damage, but it kind of changed
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the whole environment there.
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It made other parishes outside that metro area grow even faster.
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And I bring it up because it's important to your original Corvette story
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because at some point you ended up selling off your original 66 Corvette.
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Then you went on a journey to refind it and part of that was discovering it
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as a result of the impact of Katrina.
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So sort of walk us through that, how you found it, the restoration
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process and so on, and bringing that original Corvette home to you.
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We have two boys and when my boys were, let's say seven, eight, I sold it 'cause
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I felt like it was just sitting around.
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My wife said, you know, we really ought get rid of that car before it
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deteriorates and blah, blah blah.
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So we did.
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So one day I was cleaning out my desk drawer and I ran across,
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this was years after I sold it.
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We used to have what's called a pink slip.
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It was like a registration, but it was the pink slip.
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And I had a friend of mine that worked for the state run the VIN
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number, and lo and behold, the address that this guy lived at.
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Sound familiar to me.
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And it was in Slidel, it was across the lake from New Orleans.
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That next day I asked one of my superintendents, 'cause he lived there,
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and I said, where's this address?
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'cause I know you're in Slidel.
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And he looked at the address and he said, well, that's my street.
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He said, the number that must be right next to my house, I said, well, does the
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guy next door to you have a red Corvette?
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He says, yeah, I told you about that call years ago.
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'cause Mike, my superintendent, been with me 20 something years, but you know, I
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was so busy involved in business and when he said it, it just went over my head.
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And then when he told me that, I said, wait a minute, you telling
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me this call is next to you?
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He says, yeah, I see it every week.
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The guy goes out and drive, whatever.
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I said, well, when you go home, I need to talk to the guy.
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He called me and we stayed in touch and he was the regional U-Haul representative.
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Kept it at the U-Haul facility in a storage container.
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And don't you know Katrina comes, it's in New Orleans East and that's
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where all the flooding happened.
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That call was literally a summary.
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I mean, it was over the roof.
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And he called me, he says, look, the insurance company wants to
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give me $20,000 if I want to keep the car off of the settlement.
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And I said, I'll pay it.
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Keep the car, I'll give you the 20.
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He said, done deal.
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So that's how I got it back.
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And lemme tell you, this call was a submarine.
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Within five hours we had that call running.
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The gas cap was sealed.
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When we opened the gas cap, they had a half a tank of gas and the
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water didn't go into the tank.
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So we flushed the motor out with all, and we used some diesel and
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cleaned the carburetor four or five hours we had it running.
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But anyway, we since have sent it off it's frame off restoration.
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It's beautiful now.
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$120,000 later, you know it's brand new again.
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Yeah, right.
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It's that original 1200.
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Just, you know, add some zeros to it, that's all.
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Yeah.
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And my wife, we even was kidding about that.
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Wait a minute.
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You pay 1200, now you're gonna pay one 20 to have it restored.
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Something's wrong.
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Adjusted for inflation.
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That's what that's called.
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Right.
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Right.
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So switching gears a little bit, we talk about Corvettes and Corvette racing and we
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find that you're also involved in racing.
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You have a couple sponsored Ari Rail cars, and for those that don't
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know what those are, drag racing cars, the ones you kind of see like,
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you know, the big top fuel cars.
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So tell us a little bit more about how you got into that side of the
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vehicle world and your builds.
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And do you do any drag racing yourself?
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Have you gone down the strip?
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Oh yeah.
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I'm still licensed in N H R A Super Comp.
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I still retain my license, but the way I got started, my brother-in-law
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that had the Belvedere 4 26 hemmer, he used to go out to the track
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and we'd go out and watch it.
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Southland Driveway here in hoa, Louisiana.
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My dad owned land right next to the track and the opening event there with all the
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big name guys, dime, gall, snake, all those guys were there for the opening.
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I was in the towel as a young kid.
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Watching the races.
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You know, when I see that, I got kind of hooked on that.
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And as I got older, I did some racing and then after I got married and
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had kids, I bought a 82 Corvette, all two Dow chassis, Supercon car.
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I raced that.
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And then when my oldest son was eight, I bought a junior dragster for him.
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He's very good.
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He won his first race.
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Now he runs top dragster.
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It's right below alcohol.
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He's been second and he's also won the division 2013 and won the whole
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division of N H R A top dragster.
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From there, my youngest son got involved.
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I was working day and night in construction.
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During the day when I get home, have to take care of Corvettes.
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I got race cars I gotta deal with.
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I got tracked the trailers, you know, we were just burning it on both ends.
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But anyway, throughout my kids' careers, they had five
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dragsters and a junior funny car.
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In my museum.
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I have all of those up on the wall, and then I have all the drta.
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We have three big Drta, top drta that we've run since
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we're talking about racing.
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Are you a fan of any other racing Formula One IMSA sports car Endurance.
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I've always been drag racing.
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I mean, I got a lot of friends that like NASCAR stuff.
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I've been invited to the NASCAR races.
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That's just not my thing.
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I can't sit there and just look at cars going in a circle.
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I'm not beating anybody up.
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That's their thing.
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I like drag racing.
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I pat 'em on the back, you know, and we sell NASCARs.
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I think they're great, but that's just not my thing, you know?
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Fair enough.
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We're gonna pop this thing into third here, and we're gonna
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talk about your sweet spot.
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We're gonna talk about auctions, and I know it's something that Williams's
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been chomping at the bit to talk about too, because as we've learned in the
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past, he does some brokering himself, as you said, your day job, general
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contracting, you've been into cars, collecting cars, personal collection,
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museum, all these kinds of things.
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So did you start an auction company so you could get your hands on some of the
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better stuff before it went to market?
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Well, it wasn't really planned.
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One of my best friends, Henry Shane, he owns Cars of Yester years.
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He's a local developer here.
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He's probably the largest apartment owner here in the New Orleans market.
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He has 150 car collection and he used to be the Cruise International sponsor.
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You remember Cruz way back when?
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Yeah.
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Well, when Henry's business blew up and he just got out of control and
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he couldn't be the sponsor anymore.
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He told me, he says, you take it and you run with it.
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You build it, do whatever you want with it.
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I did, we were having auctions at BoomTown Casino and the second year some
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guys called me and said, man, we wanna start this little cruise in Biloxi.
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We want you to move over.
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'cause Biloxi Gulf Coast is beautiful.
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I agreed and the first year of cruising the coast probably had 600
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cars, maybe not that many 'cause I had already had an auction planned, so I
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didn't do the first year, but I was involved with them putting it together.
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And then the second year is the first year I had the auction at
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Cruising the Coast and we sold the Imperial Palace collection.
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At the Imperial Palace Casino, and from there it was on every
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year doing the sales there.
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And I don't know if you're familiar with Cruise on the Coast.
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We were voted the best car show by U SS A today for the fourth time.
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Oh wow.
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Last year, 9,630 something cars were in the cruise.
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They probably had two times that many that wasn't registered because of the
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impact on the local area, the state, and the city's access to do an impact study.
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And we did, and it's a 30 plus million dollar impact for a week.
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There's 260,000 people come for the event over 10 days.
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That's outstanding.
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I tell everybody, y'all, when I go around the country at different auctions and
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all they missing out, and when they do come, they say, man, I don't understand
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why we haven't been here for years now.
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You know, I've always tell people the auctions, it's a
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fun thing to come experienced.
18:13
Pete, in your opinion, why an auction over all these other options that are
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out there for a car buyer or a collector?
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I much prefer buying at an auction than buying online.
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At an auction you can touch, you can feel it, you can look at it.
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So most cars that are online, chely came from an auction.
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Some dealer or somebody bought it at an auction and proved it, did whatever
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they had to do and put it online.
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That is very true, and people don't realize that, you know, they're not
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doing the research on the car thoroughly enough to find out its whole history.
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But yeah, you're a hundred percent correct in that majority of
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'em come through an auction one point or another in their life.
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Years ago, I bought two Superbird from a guy.
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One of 'em was a Hemi, and one was I think a four 40.
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I bought 'em.
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I sold them at the auction.
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I think for the pay.
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I got around 400,000 for both of them.
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The buddy of mine that bought the Hemi car kept it in his collection.
19:06
Three, four years.
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He sold the car, I think it was three 50.
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Well, a dealer takes it, puts it on his website.
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Doesn't get any bites, sends it to the auction in Scottsdale.
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That car, same car that I sold at auction, brought $1,400,000.
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Car.
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Wasn't worth that.
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They got caught up in the frenzy of the auction and my buddy was there and it's
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a shame to say, but Byer got caught up in it and was raising his own bids.
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It got outta hand.
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And then the cost sold point is that call was at an auction that
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somebody could have got a better deal and it sold for crazy money.
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People feed off that energy.
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And to your point too, it's like who are you actually bidding against?
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Bidding against yourself?
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The auction company's goal is obviously trying to get the most money for
19:55
the client, but also for themselves.
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'cause obviously fees and whatnot.
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Unfortunately, some people get caught up in that and they end up
20:01
paying up way more than they should.
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And then hopefully it's, they love the car.
20:04
They'll hang onto it for a long time.
20:06
But yeah, it does happen quite a bit.
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When things like that happen, you better like the car better than your money.
20:11
Yeah.
20:12
It's not my problem.
20:13
You got outta hand Because we have people that come bring us cars
20:17
that they have bought from other auctions, and I'm honest with people.
20:20
This is a family auctions.
20:22
We tell people upfront what we can do for you.
20:24
We help you.
20:25
I'm at the back door helping people get cars in.
20:28
I'm at the auction podium.
20:29
I'm not sitting on some.
20:32
Office that's not involved.
20:34
I'm very involved and I tell people when they bring a car and they tell me they
20:38
got a hundred thousand in reserve, and I said, sir, I'll be honest with you.
20:42
It's only my opinion, but I think this car's worth 50.
20:45
Oh, well, I paid 85 $90,000.
20:48
I said, The top of the market's 50.
20:50
So we'll try it for you.
20:52
And a lot of people end up losing money 'cause they just didn't
20:55
know what they were buying.
20:56
You know, I've run that situation many times, helping someone
20:59
with the car to try and sell it.
21:00
They're on the fence about going, which route?
21:02
I'm like, well, I'm gonna go to the auction, you know,
21:03
'cause they told me this.
21:04
I'm like, well, yeah, they're gonna tell you that.
21:06
It's not worth that.
21:07
'cause they want the car in the auction to keep their numbers up.
21:10
But I'm like, Hey, I go, it's your car.
21:12
Do what you want.
21:12
Two months later, after auction they called me back.
21:14
Oh, hey Will man, you know, I should have listened you, you were right because
21:17
I spent all this money shipping it there, da da this and all this stuff.
21:20
Come back like, look, I go, I was just being honest with, but
21:22
hey, you do what you wanna do.
21:23
But it's unfortunate that it happens quite a bit.
21:26
They listen to that little voice that's talking over here from
21:29
say, the Scottsdale auction people and you know those locations and.
21:32
They're just trying to get, oh, we had 1500 cars.
21:35
Oh, we had not, you know, this kind of situation.
21:37
It's like, well, what did you really do for them?
21:39
That's the thing.
21:40
Yes.
21:40
I had a situation where a car was getting outta hand on prices on the auction block.
21:45
There was two friends bidding on it, and I just walked over there and,
21:48
and I knew what the reserve was and the bid walked way over the reserve.
21:52
The seller was happy and I had to do it because I owe it to my customers.
21:57
I just said, do you realize what you bidding on?
22:00
And he says, yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:01
One of 'em said, well, my wife, it was a white T-bird.
22:03
Beautiful.
22:04
Absolutely drop that gorgeous car.
22:06
But when you get north of a hundred, it don't make sense.
22:09
No.
22:09
And I said, the seller's happy right now.
22:12
Why are y'all doing this?
22:13
I told 'em both and they were on their own and one of 'em got it and he still
22:17
has it today, but they'd like the car.
22:19
They like the car better than their mind.
22:21
You can quickly sour some people too on coming to auction, which
22:25
is, you know, to your point.
22:26
Going to that and touching and feeling, seeing the car, and maybe
22:29
even hear it run and whatnot.
22:31
But it can sour people after that experience like, oh, I
22:34
got taken on this or that.
22:35
You know, wrong place, wrong time.
22:37
There's a lot of auction comes out there, but you gotta deal with the
22:39
right ones and go to the right auctions where they're gonna treat you fairly.
22:41
I've got thank you cards and letters from so many customers.
22:45
I got a call today, a guy from South Florida.
22:49
He says, man, y'all treat people so nicely.
22:52
He registered 12 calls today.
22:54
Oh, that's awesome.
22:54
Yeah, I mean, I got a lot of that repeat business and because
22:57
they know I'm always available by phone, they can call me anytime.
23:02
I've got it on vibrated.
23:03
It's done one off three times while you and I would talk.
23:05
And as you know that, treat your customer right.
23:07
You have a customer for life.
23:09
It's simple.
23:09
It's a very good model to live by.
23:11
That's what I've always done.
23:12
I'm gonna teach you right, teach you fair, and teach you honestly.
23:15
I want you to not only come back, but I want you to recommend me to other people.
23:19
I'm sure you get it too.
23:20
Say, well, hey, yo, so and so sold their cars to you guys,
23:23
you know, a year ago, whatever.
23:24
Hey, I wanna bring some cars too, because you did treat 'em so well.
23:26
Look, I've been doing auctions now almost 30 years.
23:30
Everybody has got that title and everybody's got paid,
23:33
and I have not been sued.
23:35
Not one time.
23:36
'cause I told my people from day one, if, if we can't do it right and be
23:40
nice to people, let's stop right now.
23:42
Stop.
23:42
So that's my motto.
23:43
And then my family's all involved and it's been working.
23:47
I don't wanna be the biggest, and I'm not gonna tell you I'm the
23:49
best, but I'm gonna Sure work hard to make sure my customers have.
23:53
It's all, I'm struggling.
23:54
I've spoken with other auction companies before, but it's always been
23:57
one of these things that I, I sort of shied away from and I've come to
23:59
the auction scene late and I actually experienced my first car auction
24:04
live back at Lamar earlier this year.
24:07
If I summarize it into two words or one phrase, it was like this quiet chaos.
24:13
There's so many moving parts and so many pieces to it and it was intense
24:17
and the bidding and all this stuff.
24:18
And to your point, you do get wrapped up in it.
24:21
But it also made me stop and pause and think, well, why haven't
24:24
I come to an auction before?
24:25
And, and you were talking about online versus auctions and, and things like that.
24:29
But it also made me wonder, why not get a broker if I'm gonna try to
24:33
find a car, a specific car, right?
24:34
Somebody like William, what he does, or just direct sale.
24:37
Granted some of these cars, you're not gonna go to Autotrader or
24:40
cars.com to find them, but there's a lot of different avenues here.
24:43
You go to the right auctions, you can pay less at an auction
24:46
than buying 'em through a broker.
24:48
Not always, but most of the time you can.
24:50
If you do your homework, the auction is a better buy.
24:54
But it's fun also because like I said earlier, I mean most cars that end up
24:59
at dealers or whatever, at some point in its life, they went through an auction.
25:03
We've got, people have bought Porsches, let's say brand new Porsches.
25:07
They don't trade 'em in because they don't get any money for 'em on a new car.
25:11
They send them to our sale and they'll get more.
25:13
And the buyer's happy.
25:15
You know, we work with people.
25:17
I mean, if we have to, we work on commissions so that the
25:20
buyer and the sellers are happy.
25:21
And it's a fun outing.
25:23
Like I keep saying that, especially cruising the coast.
25:25
We have so much going on.
25:28
There's burnout contest.
25:30
You know, we have the beach boys playing, we have cruise ins.
25:34
I mean, people get there at two, three o'clock in the morning to get
25:38
a good parking spot for the Cruisin, and we have six or seven casinos.
25:43
All of them have something going on at that event, and it's just so much going.
25:48
We have to swap, meet.
25:49
And we got the auction.
25:50
We got road rallies.
25:52
It's 30 miles of hot rods all along the beach.
25:55
Is that in October?
25:56
Yes.
25:56
It starts the first weekend in October and it runs to the second.
26:01
Our auction is the fourth through the seventh.
26:03
It's four days this year.
26:05
'cause we're doing now spring and fall.
26:07
Springs in April in conjunction with the Crawfish Festival and then the
26:12
fall sail with cruising the Coast at the same convention center in Biloxi.
26:16
I just had to come down for that this year.
26:18
Yeah, police do you.
26:19
You'll love it.
26:20
The weather's nice.
26:21
You're right there on the Gulf and it's beautiful area.
26:25
He's just making me want to go to his event more and more in October.
26:30
Y'all are more than welcome.
26:32
That is just an event in itself that people like to come and
26:35
enjoy and they buy a car too.
26:37
Yeah, you'll be that much more excited about your acquisition
26:40
and more than likely you might be able to get a better price on it.
26:43
Let's go and see what we can do, especially like a new buyer, someone that
26:47
is just getting into, say, a collector car, exotic car, whatever it may be.
26:51
It really gets them into, and, and being part of that, you know, all the
26:55
ancillary stuff that goes on, like you were saying with all those other events
26:58
that you guys have, say, look, there's so much more you can do with your car.
27:01
Then just buying it.
27:02
Then they park in your garage and go on a Sunday drive.
27:04
You know, there's clubs, there's all these things you can do.
27:06
It's really getting them into the car world, you know, for like
27:10
what you guys are doing on there.
27:11
It's fantastic.
27:12
'cause it's not just about the auction, it's about all these other
27:14
things that you guys got going on too that people can do with their cars.
27:18
It shows people like, Hey, if I get a car, I can go to this auction tomorrow,
27:22
the next day I can be part of this.
27:24
It's getting people involved and get 'em into it.
27:26
One of the other things I've also noticed across the different folks
27:30
that I've talked to, and even going to the auction that I was at, it seems
27:33
like a hassle-free experience, right?
27:35
Again, you get to see the car ahead of time, get to talk to people.
27:37
There's the whole energy of the event itself, but it seems like the process.
27:43
Especially now in our digital age has been very streamlined.
27:46
There were guys on the phone, there's guys bidding online, you have brokers
27:49
there, people in person with their little paddles, you know, all this kind of stuff.
27:52
That's also partly in part because of the auction company and the
27:56
processes that they've put in place.
27:58
So Pete over at Bakari Auto Auctions, what have you guys done
28:01
to streamline the process and make it a hassle-free experience for
28:05
the bidders as well as the sellers?
28:06
Well, you're right, we've got a lot of moving parts going on.
28:10
The first thing that we do to make it really hassle free, you know, because
28:14
there's so many people coming to cruising the coast, 260,000 people,
28:18
a lot of people don't come prepared.
28:19
In other words, they don't come with cash or they don't come with a bank letter.
28:23
LER finance is right there and literally you give 'em your name, address, and
28:27
social security number, they'll prove you in less than five minutes for the amount.
28:32
People, they don't realize how quick that takes.
28:35
All they're doing is checking your credit score.
28:37
You got good credit, they're gonna loan you a hundred thousand bucks.
28:40
And I've got friends that I'm talking about people with deep
28:44
pockets and the girl at Ed Kesler has developed a lot of friends and
28:49
she'll joke with 'em, gimme your driver's license, gimme a credit card.
28:51
Lemme go see if you a good credit.
28:53
She'll come back and say, you good for half a million dollars?
28:55
And some of 'em said, well, what's the rate?
28:57
Said 2%.
28:59
Well shoot.
28:59
I'm gonna use your money instead of taking my money out.
29:02
Yeah.
29:03
Everybody's like, man, this is good.
29:04
So anyway, we make that hassle free.
29:07
If somebody comes in and has never been to an auction and my girls
29:11
at the bid registration desk, they are trained to pick that out.
29:15
If somebody don't know the process, they will let one of our car salesman people.
29:21
No, and they will walk 'em through the process and kind of stay with them, walk
29:27
'em out to the auction, show 'em and explain to 'em what's going on, where
29:31
the cars are for today to be auctioned.
29:33
Don't be intimidated if a car opens up at a hundred thousand dollars.
29:38
That's just auctioneer getting the auction going, but he's gonna
29:41
drop down to, let's say, $25,000.
29:44
So don't bid at a hundred.
29:46
Wait till he drops down.
29:48
Then get in it's easy process.
29:50
We've got transportation there, everything is done right there.
29:53
And even for the guys that bring cars to sell there detail is there cleaning them.
29:58
'cause for cruising the coast, people drive 'em around for a week and
30:01
they bring 'em to the back door and wanna sell 'em and of cost filthy.
30:04
Well, we gotta have all details ready to go for people.
30:07
It's a seamless process.
30:09
I've sold cars to the Netherlands, Australia.
30:13
We had a couple cars, went to Germany 'cause we have online bidding.
30:16
You can go on that and register to bid.
30:19
You need to do that ahead of time 'cause we have to pre-approve
30:21
you to make sure you're for real when you got a good IP address.
30:25
But then you can buy online and they wire us the money and we send the
30:29
car out, ship it right to the door.
30:31
You guys are finding your bread and butter in essence is, you know, the
30:34
classic muscle carves your carves from the fifties, sixties, maybe
30:37
early, mid seventies, or, I mean, or do you have more of a breath?
30:41
Uh, like you mentioned, hey, we will take the guy to 20 22, 9 11
30:44
that he bought and put 1500 miles on and he wants to run it through.
30:47
I mean, you guys try and curate to what you guys know or what you guys feel is
30:52
gonna go, or it's like, Hey, you're gonna take what you guys can get because there's
30:55
so many people there and so many different age groups, we could sell anything.
30:59
We had a guy who passed away.
31:01
He donated two 20 model brass cars to Florida State University.
31:06
We sold those two cars.
31:08
One was 210 and another was 300 and something, and then we'll
31:12
sell a Ferrari or a Lamborghini because our audience is very broad.
31:18
We're not, let's say a muscle car or a fifties collection.
31:23
We have so much to pick from because of our broad audience.
31:27
It's kind of great to say that because we have something for everyone.
31:31
Yeah.
31:31
We have 20 models to brand new Corvettes.
31:34
Obviously people coming to you or do you guys sometimes have to go out and like
31:38
try and get on the phone and say, Hey, I know you got some cars, you know, you did
31:41
some maybe auction 'em off, and what do you guys do about creating cars that way?
31:44
We do a lot of that.
31:45
Both of that.
31:46
Last year at Cruising the Coast in October, people that checked out our
31:50
regular customers, we had over 225 numbers reserved for the next year.
31:57
They reserve a year ahead of time because they know they're coming
32:00
and they reserve 'em right away.
32:02
And then we do a lot of cold calling to try to develop new
32:05
customers because it's reality.
32:08
But I've had two great customers pass away.
32:11
You know, they were good customers buying and selling, so you have
32:14
to go out and look for new people.
32:16
And it's a shame.
32:17
One of 'em was one of my best friends that I sold my callback collection too.
32:22
I didn't want to get involved.
32:24
Mecu sold them in Dallas.
32:26
The Horton collection.
32:28
I went, but I mean, it was tears in my eyes because most
32:31
of all the Cotes were mine.
32:33
Sentiment, attachment to those things you know mean a lot.
32:35
Are you finding, as you know, a lot of these collections obviously owned
32:40
and put together by individuals.
32:43
On the elderly side and passing away.
32:45
Now is coming more frequent.
32:46
You're seeing these collections come to auction, sites coming to market.
32:50
Are you getting more and more of that?
32:51
You're seeing a lot larger collections coming to you guys 'cause of that because
32:55
the family can't do the tax burden or they just don't wanna deal with it?
32:58
'cause they're not into cars.
32:59
Not a lot, but there is some.
33:01
But what's happening, some of the competitors, when those
33:04
collections do come up, the auction company are buy in the collection,
33:08
just buy 'em from the family.
33:09
And then they use the family's name like the The carry
33:14
collection, carry estate Sale.
33:16
Well, the carrier, they don't own it.
33:19
The auction companies already bought it and it's no reserves.
33:22
So you just gotta be careful when you get into situations like that.
33:25
I don't play those games.
33:26
If there's a car there that came from an estate, whatever the
33:31
family wants to do, whether it's.
33:32
They want to sell it on reserve or no reserve.
33:37
That's totally up to them.
33:38
They've always asked me for my opinion of what the value is.
33:43
It seems to be working out, and we also have nonprofit organizations that have
33:48
cars that have been donated to them.
33:50
We auction 'em off the charity like this coming year.
33:53
We have a prototype.
33:54
1956 Cadillac 56, they were trying those dual headlights out.
34:00
Cadillac built this car and well this guy bought it and he's donating to a
34:06
charity that we're gonna auction the car for the proceeds go to build this
34:10
stone for all the children in Manila.
34:12
And this organization has built them all over the world for homeless kids.
34:17
We got those kind of cars coming to us and it's just a lot of different cars
34:21
coming in from a lot of different avenues.
34:23
You mentioned about like reserve, no reserve stuff.
34:25
I mean, do you guys just put it to the owner, say, here's the two routes you
34:29
can go, it's your decision, or do you try and start out saying, Hey, no reserve,
34:32
or, Hey, it's all up to the owner.
34:34
It's about the customer.
34:35
I mean, it's not about the dollar and it's not about the call.
34:38
It's whatever the customer's expectations are.
34:42
I don't push no reserve because I don't want a customer to be upset.
34:46
You know, if there's nobody in the room that wants that kind of car and it goes
34:50
up and it sells for $5,000 because it's a great deal, maybe they should have
34:54
had a $10,000 reserve on it and it might have sold for 12 five or 25 or whatever.
34:59
I just kind of feel a customer out.
35:02
A lot of auctions will get you in no reserve and they don't care about you.
35:05
They want the commission and send you on your way.
35:08
That ain't me.
35:09
That is not me.
35:10
I'm worried about my customers.
35:12
That's awesome to hear.
35:13
And William brought up something really important when you're talking
35:15
about estate planning, because that is a hot topic these days.
35:20
He's a hundred percent right.
35:21
And just to remind our audience, we had Jim Cruz.
35:24
From Classic Auto Insurance who started a service called Car Connection
35:28
that works with folks like yourself.
35:30
I'm sure you're familiar, Pete, where you basically preset this
35:34
stuff, especially with the family member before they pass away to say,
35:37
what's gonna happen to my collection?
35:39
How is it gonna get broken up?
35:40
Which auction company do I wanna work with?
35:42
Making all these plans ahead of time, really sitting down and doing
35:45
estate planning and working in conjunction with the auction companies.
35:48
That way, the family, to Williams Point, who doesn't have an
35:51
interest in daddy's Corvette.
35:53
It can go to the right place, or it can be donated to the right
35:56
museum or things like that.
35:58
You know, there's a lot of moving parts there.
36:00
I just wanna remind folks that it's on both ends, that the auction
36:03
companies are involved in this, as well as the estate planners,
36:06
as well as the owners themselves.
36:07
I tell customers, you gotta be realistic on their expectation, on their price.
36:11
I have a customer that almost every year he sends me his insurance list,
36:17
and I don't know why he does, because I got the one from last year at my desk.
36:20
He'll say, look at my list of cars.
36:23
Has these cars went up or down so I can insure?
36:27
And I said, you know, wait a minute.
36:29
Wait a minute, Jim.
36:29
Jim, stop.
36:30
Stop.
36:31
You bought these cars 10 years ago, let's say, and you paid nothing for 'em.
36:35
I've already got the insurance up on these cars.
36:37
Like let's say you paid 50,000 for a car 10 years ago.
36:40
You already got insured for one 50.
36:42
You good?
36:43
Yeah.
36:44
Forget about it, that the cars were 200 today.
36:46
How much money do you want to insure these cars for?
36:50
You are wasting money.
36:51
I said you already got a hundred thousand dollars over and above what you paid for.
36:55
Now you not in it to hurt the insurance company.
36:59
If something happens, you wanna be covered, is a hundred thousand enough?
37:02
He says, yeah.
37:03
I said, well, why do you want to pay for more insurance?
37:05
So don't be over-insured is what I'm saying and pay.
37:08
And for all of that, it's almost like, what do you got planned?
37:12
Yeah, exactly.
37:14
Are you planning to create a flood or fire?
37:17
Right.
37:18
If you're not doing any of that, you're good.
37:20
Why you won't throw all this money away?
37:22
And so the reason I bring up this stuff about estate planning is that part
37:26
of a lot of these car collections.
37:28
Is also memorabilia and PETA that goes with it, that people have created,
37:32
let's say, these garage mahals or these shrines to their beloved
37:36
vehicles, whether it's Porsche or it's Corvette, or it's Alpha Romeo,
37:39
or it's sort of combination thereof.
37:40
Do you guys at Akari handle the collections as well as the cars or solely?
37:46
Strictly dealing with the vehicles?
37:48
We handled the collections.
37:49
Also like at Cruising the Coast, the first day of the sale is strictly memorabilia.
37:55
We have a gentleman that has like 90,000 lots of Hollywood memorabilia
38:00
and I said, wait a minute.
38:01
Whoa Tom, I can't take that, but I'll take 500 pieces.
38:05
We got a lot of automotive memorabilia, so we, yes, because you know, quite honestly,
38:09
if you there at an auction and you're a car guy, you buy memorabilia also because
38:13
you're gonna put it on your garage wall.
38:15
I couldn't tell you what the color of my wall is in my garage because
38:18
I got so much stuff on the wall.
38:20
For years when I was involved with N H R A in the Heritage series, that's when they
38:25
have the reunions and all at the banquets.
38:28
They would have a backdrop.
38:30
I think I have six or seven of them every year.
38:33
At the end of the banquet, they would auction off the backdrop.
38:37
All the drivers would sign it.
38:39
Snake Don Perone, Manzoni.
38:41
All the old time.
38:43
They sign 'em all.
38:44
Well, I got like six or seven of 'em.
38:46
They all on the walls and they used, they like maybe 12 by 30.
38:50
They're great.
38:51
People walk in and look at it and they start seeing all the signatures on it.
38:54
So let's talk a little bit about the trends.
38:56
What's hot in auction sales right now?
38:59
William mentioned it earlier when he was talking about, you know,
39:01
do you cater to just a specific genre of car at the auction?
39:04
It sounds like you guys are a little bit more open, but on the sales side,
39:07
there are certain pockets in the market that are really hot right now.
39:10
It looks like nineties cars, J d m, and imports.
39:13
You know, the Asian cars are really hot right now, especially in a
39:16
certain demographic and age group.
39:17
Then trucks have also followed in that trend.
39:20
Are you seeing those as the next big thing on the auction scene, or is
39:24
there something else that's really kind of bubbling to the surface?
39:27
Well, that's what's hot today.
39:28
I don't think that's the next, that is hot today.
39:31
We need to try to figure out what is the next car coming up because Broncos,
39:35
late 70 Broncos bringing Haiti 120.
39:39
$150,000.
39:40
Who would've thought I'm hearing the same thing about square body Chevys too.
39:44
Exactly.
39:45
Exactly.
39:46
You know, it was for a while, the 63 split window and they bring in big money.
39:51
I think it kind of cooled off a little bit on them right now, but
39:55
unless you do Apresso mod out of it, it'll bring, you know, five, 600,000.
39:59
You know, the rest of mines, I think is where the money is today.
40:04
But, and I'm gonna say this, it's got a, but rest MOD's gotta be tastefully done.
40:11
Okay.
40:12
Because I've seen some rest mod that are, are renders.
40:15
But if it's very tastefully done, like a new car, man, it knocks it out the park.
40:20
You think there's some cars out there that will just never
40:23
be desirable or they're just.
40:25
Weird enough that only like a click is interested in them.
40:27
Have you seen some things come across the block that you're
40:30
just like, why is this even here?
40:31
I've seen some weirdest cars that you think that would never
40:35
bring any money, but you know, I'm gonna laugh when I say this.
40:38
A youo, I can guarantee you a youo will never bring any
40:42
more money than it does today.
40:46
But there are other cars that are gonna surprise you.
40:49
People are gonna take 'em.
40:51
'cause they used to have it when they was a kid and they want
40:53
one, and the prices go up on 'em.
40:55
For me to sit here today to tell you what I think is the next car,
40:59
man, that's hard because there's so many cars out, so many out there.
41:03
Looking back over all the years you've been doing this, what
41:05
is the record setting car?
41:07
What was the car that sold for the highest?
41:09
Really shocked everybody at a ARI auto auction.
41:12
It was a 73 callback.
41:14
It had 12, 13,000 original miles.
41:17
It was the original owner.
41:19
I had known the car.
41:21
When the car came in the auction block, the gentleman that sold it, he had
41:25
looked at other auction companies and because what that way I Kentucky myself.
41:30
He said, you the guy, you're gonna be honest with.
41:33
The car comes in the block and he told me, he said, everything on this car
41:37
is original except the distributor cap, the water pump and the tires.
41:43
I said, okay, good.
41:44
And that, and being a callback guy, I ran the numbers and sure enough
41:48
everything was matching numbers.
41:50
All dated correctly.
41:52
And I've known the call for a long time, but you know, I didn't
41:55
know it back in the eighties.
41:56
But anyway, when he, when the call came in the block, his grandsons
42:01
each had a tire, an old tire.
42:03
He had the distributor cap and the water pump, and he put it right there
42:06
and he says, Those are the original parts and that is an original car.
42:11
Now, 73, call that in your wildest dreams.
42:14
What do you think it should bring?
42:15
I'm gonna test y'all for minute, I mean standard, not talking anything special
42:19
motor wise or anything like that.
42:20
No.
42:21
Small block automatic there.
42:22
Red car, automatic boot.
42:25
45 grand.
42:27
Okay.
42:27
What's your other thought?
42:28
I'm gonna go on the high end and say a buck and a quarter.
42:31
Tried $265,000 and I had three or four people fighting over it.
42:37
Wow.
42:38
Fighting over it.
42:39
I mean, it was a spectacularly a call, right?
42:42
One owner, he had the original title.
42:44
We had it in the office, but he put the 1973 title on the table
42:48
and I asked the buyer, I said, why?
42:50
Why?
42:51
Please tell me.
42:52
I'm gonna call that guy.
42:53
But we set the world record here today.
42:55
He said, well, I've got the sister car tot.
42:58
I said, what do you mean?
42:59
He said, I have the convertible red just like this with 10,000 miles on it.
43:07
And I said, oh, wow.
43:09
You know, and he didn't tell me that.
43:11
Until after he won the bid.
43:13
And then when it was all said and done, I just so happened to go in the office
43:16
and I told the girls what just happened, and my office manager says, Pete, that
43:22
guy was prepared to go twice that much.
43:24
I said, what?
43:24
He said, yeah, when he registered the bid, he told me he was gonna go twice
43:27
that he was half a million if he had to.
43:29
It's like, really?
43:30
You should've, you know, we, we don't want that.
43:32
Yeah, that's too much for that call.
43:34
But he's still happy with it.
43:35
I talked to him, but anyway.
43:36
Probably when you compare wreckage, 'cause like you said, 25 50 or maybe a buck and
43:43
a quarter, that's all they bring him.
43:45
They wasn't bringing 2 65.
43:47
We had 69 Camaro Copos before they were bringing 200.
43:51
We were selling 'em for 300.
43:52
I will say this, our auction has been successful.
43:56
We have not been the biggest.
43:58
A lot of dealers come to us 'cause they get better buys at our auctions and
44:02
then they can sell 'em at their offices or program or online or whatever.
44:07
What's next?
44:07
What's next for you, Pete Akari And what's next for Akari Auto Auctions?
44:11
What's in the future?
44:13
We just wanna make it the two auctions a year that we're having bigger and
44:17
better and just state the course.
44:19
We've got a good plan of action.
44:20
I do not want to travel around the country.
44:23
I just want to do two sales a year, but handle it very
44:27
personable with our customers and just make 'em bigger as it is.
44:30
You know, doing a lot of sales is you lose the quality.
44:33
I don't wanna do that.
44:34
I wanna be able to handle my customers properly.
44:37
So with that, we've reached the point where I get to ask
44:40
you our final wrap up question.
44:41
Pete, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you'd like
44:44
to share that we didn't cover?
44:46
Thus far?
44:46
I've been blessed.
44:47
I got a great family, great business.
44:49
I'm in a general contracting business, and I was able to not only merge into, because
44:55
I collect cars to do the auction business.
44:58
But to collect my own cars.
45:01
But I mean, I just invite everybody to come down the cruising the Coast.
45:05
If you have not been, when you get there, you'll be shocked
45:09
and you'll be coming for years.
45:11
And October is our best weather.
45:13
That's when you have all the festivals around 'cause it's, it's really great.
45:16
Cool.
45:17
It's not as hot.
45:18
It's a great time.
45:19
And it's a family event.
45:20
I tell it all the time.
45:22
This is a family event.
45:23
This is not a bunch of guys.
45:25
You know, you'll see people out there with their entire family.
45:28
But you know, guys, I gotta say this, I've been blessed.
45:31
I have great family, great business, great wife and kids.
45:34
The family, you know, that I have is able to afford me this opportunity to do all
45:40
this stuff, and I'm blessed with that.
45:42
Pete Ari's dedication to his customers is evident as he goes the extra mile,
45:46
offering vehicle documentation and storage services, including caring
45:50
for the vehicles in his museum until the new owners can take possession.
45:54
It's a personal experience when dealing with Ari Auto Auction Company and his
45:59
consignors are more than the average car guy versus the mega collectors.
46:03
And Ari offers consignors a choice.
46:05
You can put a reserve on.
46:06
To learn more about Akari Auctions and how you can acquire your next dream
46:10
car or visit their collection, be sure to check out www.ariauctions.com
46:16
or follow them on social at akari Auction on Facebook, Instagram,
46:20
Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.
46:22
With that.
46:22
Pete, I can't thank you enough for coming on Break Fix, sharing your story and
46:26
your passion for Corvettes and telling us all about the next auction we should
46:31
be attending, especially in the beautiful city of Biloxi there on the Gulf Coast.
46:35
So thank you for everything you're doing and we hope to see you here's very soon.
46:38
Thanks guys.
46:39
Thanks Pete.
46:40
Okay, key.
46:40
I'll keep in touch.
46:41
All right.
46:46
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47:13
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