Wrapping up another year of my selecting the perfect 3-car garage from Bring A Trailer each week. One is a dedicated sportscar, one off-road vehicle and a car that is suitable for road-tripping, but not too sporty or off-roady. If you are interested, here is last year’s wrap up and the year previous that too.
This year I picked only 151 cars instead of 156 which is fifty-two weeks multiplied by three. Let’s break down the short fall. The first Monday in September of last year I went off-script and picked car dealership signs. Then just like last year I missed picking cars one week and just like last year it was because we were in the beginning week of a road trip vacation. But, Brian, 151 is not divisible by 3 evenly. How come? Glad you asked, there were an abundance of very nice Miatas in the first week of last November so I opted to pick just Miatas, one from each of the 4 generations.
If I actually won all auctions of the cars I chose during the past year I would have spent a total of $8,343,123, making it an average of $55,252 per vehicle. This is down a little over $1.3 million total and seven thousand dollars respectively from the previous year. My tastes have taken a turn for the cheaper this last two years as the total is down around $2.8 million and the average per vehicle is down around $16 thousand.
The most expensive car I picked, as usual came from the Sport category, was a 2022 Ferrari F8 for $430,000. The most expensive auto in the Off-Road category was a 1976 Mercedes-Benz Unimog 416 Doka for $220,000. The highest priced auto in the Touring category was a 2017 Porsche 911 Turbo S Coupe at $178,000. There were 20 vehicles that went for over six figures.
The least expensive car I picked was from Off-Road category, a 1972 Daihatsu Atrai Turbo-EX 4WD 5-Speed that went for a paltry $7,100. The least expensive Touring vehicle was a 1920s Bugatti-Style Modele Sport No. 1/27 Pedal Car that sold for $4,300. The least expensive Sports car was actually a 2002 Mazda Miata that went for just $8,000.
The oldest car I chose was a 1935 Plymouth Deluxe Woody Wagon LT1-Powered that was from the Touring category and the reserve was not met at $40,250. There were no more cars selected from the 30’s and none from the 40’s. There were only eight from the 50’s and twenty-two from the 60’s. There were nineteen vehicles selected from the 70’s, 15 came from the 80’s, 29 were from the 90’s and the 2000’s was the most popular decade again with a total of 30. There were 16 picked from 2010-2019 and the 2020’s accounted for the last seven. There were three dealership signs and 3 pedal cars that had no year of manufacture noted. Taking all the vehicles into account, the average model year car was 1989.
The cars came from 55 separate manufacturers, a full dozen more than last year. The most popular make was Porsche with 19. The runner-up was BMW with thirteen. Mazda was third with a dozen. There were 33 manufacturers with only one car chosen.
The most chosen model name this year was Miata with 10, Wrangler was the runners-up again with 7 and 3rd place was the 911 with six picks. There were 85 one and done model names.
To wrap this up, the most popular car of this year, if it existed, would be a 2008 Porsche Miata that cost $15,000.