[vintageracer]

I spent the week at all the auctions. Lots of what can be best described as "auction cars"! The quality of cars at BJ was down significantly and was reflected in the sale price of many cars.

Clones were out of favor big time and not just Hemi clones. The distaste for clones spread to Chevy's as 1 COPO with no documentation SOLD for $60K at Russo & Steele. This was a nice car with no documentation but was completely correctly date coded and stamped. The seller described the car as "presumably" as COPO since everything on the car was correct. He stated although he could not prove it was a COPO, he also could not prove it was not a COPO. Sounds like Bull**** to me!

Of the 5-6 1970 Chevelle 396/454 convertibles there only 2 were good, correct documented cars with real paperwork. The others were pretty but had bad documentation or pretty restorations with incorrect components. While the cars had slick paint, interiors and trim, there were lots of little problems with these cars that were evident to 70 Chevelle enthusiasts that made you question the quality of the restoration since the cars were not correct. Example would be that ALL the 70 SS convertibles with A/C had 71-72 compressor brackets. Yes, the 71-72 brackets are much cheaper and easier to obtain but why spend that much money on a restoration and skimp on something so obvious. Another issue was incorrct PS pumps and repo brake boosters without the "Delco Moraine" logo. Simple stuff however if the restorer cannot get this simple stuff correct, what about the real meet and pototoes of the restoration. Lot's of restamps on many of all the Chevy's presented for auction.

Price wise, Mustangs were up, Boss 302's doubled in price. Corvettes were flat to slightly lower for good cars, Chevelles were flat. Camaro's were flat to slightly down although there were a lot less Camaro's there this year when compared to 2006. Hemi's were down and clones got killed. Nice finned cars brought rain! Noticed I said NICE!

Overall I do not think that the prices were down significantly although one migh THINK it appeared that way. What WAS DOWN SIGNIFICANTLY was the number of quality cars for sale. With 5 auctions over 2 weeks that have almost 3000 cars for sale, the lack of quality should NOT BE A SUPRISE!!!!