Richard Martinez always wanted a Corvette, and he finally found one he liked. The car was a 1959, finished in Roman Red with an Ermine White cove, with a red vinyl interior and a hard top, an older restoration that was wearing well. The car was for sale at Jabaay […]
The Aston Martin DB5 driven by Sean Connery in “Goldfinger” — modified with weaponry suitable for use by James Bond — is thought by many to be the most famous car in the world. It has also been one of the most amazing automotive mysteries of all time. The Bond […]
“Legal Files” gets interesting letters from all sorts of sources. Here’s one from none other than Publisher Martin: If Bring a Trailer is the Tiffany of online sales, then Facebook Marketplace is the armpit. No vetting, no uniform description, no trolls. I don’t know how these deals find me, but […]
What do you think about this? You’ve been a loyal collector-car policy customer for many years. You’ve insured 27 cars on the policy and never had a single claim. One night, one of your collector cars is stolen. The police recover it four days later, but the thieves have damaged it to the tune of just over $12,000.
No big deal, you’re just happy to have it back almost in one piece. Then, your collector-car insurance company denies the claim. When you object, they take you to court to establish they don’t owe you anything, plus they want you to pay their attorney fees.
Bizarre? Maybe, but believe it or not, that’s just what happened to an SCM subscriber we’ll call “Bob.”
Drifting is perhaps the most exciting new auto-racing variant of the times. Propelled to stardom by the “Fast and Furious” movie series, drift fans can’t get enough of the sideways-sliding, rubber-burning spectacle. The problem has been finding appropriate venues for the sport. The first, and likely best, purpose-built drifting venue […]
As most SCMers know, the collector-car market is way up, we are likely in a transition period for taxes, and we are getting older. All things end. Is it becoming the time to consider how we phase out of car collecting? Let’s consider the various forces that may or may […]
Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. was recently ordered to forfeit to the Iraq government a rare antiquity it had purchased for $1.7 million. The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, a rare cuneiform tablet bearing a portion of the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, is considered one of the world’s oldest works of literature. It […]
Bonhams sold Ferrari 250 GTO #3851GT at its 2014 Quail Lodge auction for $38,115,000, including buyer’s premium. It was a world-record sale — the highest price ever obtained at an auction. One would expect Bonhams’ staff and the seller to be high-fiving after the hammer fell. Instead, the seller sued […]
This month’s “Legal Files” concerns a recent situation in which a friend bought a car that was listed in an online auction. Except that “Bob” didn’t win the auction; he wound up as the underbidder. The high bidder did not meet the seller’s reserve, however, and the auction was a […]
One of the hot segments of the collector-car market is Japanese domestic market (JDM) vehicles. Previously not exported to the U.S., the popularity of JDM vehicles was spurred when the federal government relaxed import requirements for vehicles over 25 years old. A subset of the JDM category are “kei cars,” […]
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