The State Of The Market: CorvSport Presents The Classics

Oftentimes, writers overuse superlatives to get clicks, but in today’s wholesale market report, we genuinely do have a historic and rare showing of classic antique Corvettes. Our award-winning list today is literally Mecum/Barrett-Jackson-level quality. In my 17 years as an owner/operator of a used-car dealership, I’ve been to well over 1000 dealer-only wholesale auctions. Under normal circumstances, I could go weeks without seeing a classic old vehicle at one of these auctions. Most of the vehicles we dealers used to sort through were trade-ins to large franchise dealerships–basic A to B cars. And that was a good thing. [Author’s Note: This article is FREE and not behind a paywall. If/when any popups occur, please click to make them disappear and continue enjoying the feature.]

Over those 17 years of weekly dealer-only wholesale auctions, I’ve never, ever seen a collection of Corvettes like we have today. This is a good time to explain why classic antique cars usually don’t appear at your typical dealer-only wholesale auction. They don’t perform well. As noted, most dealers go to the honey-hole for what most consumers need–basic A to B cars.

As an example, in October, a 1964 Corvette popped up at the Texas wholesale auction, and I was so taken aback that I eagerly included it with the collection of C7s and C8s that usually adorn our wholesale market reports. As I expected, the second-generation classic didn’t sell. The selling dealer tried again, and again, it was a no-sale. Typically, the classic Corvettes are best left to the public specialty auctions like Mecum and Barrett-Jackson, where the bright lights and open bars dazzle bidders and compel them to open their wallets.