[necdb3]

Alan, I noticed a lot of cars were won by phone bidders this year. I was there in person and the "phone bidder light" was on a bunch.

Originally Posted by Alan Reed

Just curious, does anyone know the new home of the million dollar Judge?

Also, did anyone notice the camera did not find the buyer?

The camera was on the "phone bidder" desk, while an unknown, unseen bidder out-bid the phone bidder.

Typically the camera will focus on a bidder to capture the emotional win, followed by the high-fives and handshakes. But this time all we saw was an "all done" by a phone bidder.

And, if I was bidding on a million dollar car, I sure wouldn't want to pay the extra 2% buyer premium charged to an offsite buyer. (on a million dollar bid, that is $20K)

High end bidders who want to remain anonymous commonly hire a surrogate bidder to represent them at the auction.

I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I am skeptical that anyone paid $1.1 million for that car.

Adding to my skepticism, a blue Judge sold for half that price on Saturday. Was it half as good? It seemed to be a comparable car, quality restoration, same drive train.

We car guys want to believe that our cars are valuable and desirable, and we tend to accept high sale prices without questioning them because it makes us feel better.

There is much we don't see at the big auctions. Who knows what shenanigans and manipulations go on behind the scenes. Clearly, the auction companies thrive on publicity, and a record sale gets them much publicity.

Would an auction company contrive a fake sale to gain publicity? It has been done. Did it happen this time? We will likely never know