Lets just say we did see some "monkey" business that we can definitely confirm was misrepresented. But first you have to understand how Mecum handles cars.
Read the auction rules very carefully. Mecum has a disclaimer they are not legaly liable for any representation of a car and that all information is provided by owner. The only legal responsibility Mecum has is to verify the VIN on the title matches the VIN on the car. Every morning before the auction they stand up and go over some rules. They adamantly say "know what you are bidding on" ... when the gravel drops the car is sold and will change ownership no ifs ands buts about it. Consider they have thousands of cars of all different brands/makes/models to process on check in. It would be impossible to go over each car and check the numbers EVEN if they had the expertise/knowledge across a diverse group of cars. So my advice to anyone looking to buy there. Focus on a couple of cars, do your homework, go back and look at the car several times over a couple of days. I saw things later on a second or third look I did not catch the first time. There are so many things to see and look at it can be very distracting.
As for bidding Dave (necdb3) makes a good point. The house (Mecum) will bid on a car to get things going. They will not bid on a car once it meets reserve. People don't understand that if they did not do this we would be on some cars FOREVER before bidders got serious and never get a quarter of the way through the cars listed. It is basically a time management strategy not a way to "artificially" inflate the price. If the car does not meet reserve it does not sale. Yes it is in Mecums best interest to make a sale. They make more money on a sale than a no sale for sure. That is why they will neogtiate with sellers on reserve and commision and the same with bidders if bids get very close to a sale. They do not do this on every car and it seems mostly for the high dollar cars depending on how realistic the reserve is. We have seen Dana bid on NR cars sometimes. There were several high profile collections that went through with no reserve. I can only speculate he may have been interested in buying if he could get it at specific price.
So now I will comment on the "misrepresented" vehicle. I am not one to "talk trash" about someones car so I will try and make this as benign as possible. However I am sure some will figure this out very easily.
There was a certain Pontiac represented as a specfic model. The car was done very nicely and to high standards. A few items were incorrect but for the most part a very nice car. We looked at this car several times over the auction and I entertained the idea of possibly owning it. However on the morning it was to go across the stage my friend and I were looking at the car with several other people. He then turned to me and said "did you see the paint code"? I then walked over and looked at the cowl tag. I also noticed that for the specific model it was missing an important 3 digit code on the tag. It was very obvious at this point the car was not what it was advertised as. When the car came up to the stage they announced it as the specific model advertised. Remember what I said about information on these car? Mecum goes by what the owner provides them. The car brought very good money for what it was advertised as. We were surprised we had not caught that discrepancy earlier. At first we were not serious about this car and only inspected it as a comparison to others. As I mentioned stay focused and do your homework so you can verify codes etc...
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