Sport, Off-Road, Touring: Year 2 by the Numbers

Well, another year has come and gone of my selecting each week the perfect 3-car garage from Bring A Trailer. One is a dedicated sportscar, one off-road vehicle and a car that is suitable for road-tripping.

Last year I created a post that wrapped up the previous year’s cars and now I’m sort of obligated to do it again. Unlike last year when I had to look back at every week to collect data, this time I have kept the spreadsheet updated as I have gone along. This means it will get posted about a week sooner than the last one.

Like last year I once again picked 156 cars, which is three times fifty-two, but unlike last year I missed picking cars one week. We were on our second day of a two-week driving vacation and I forgot (I did remember for the second Monday though.) So how did I end up with the same number of cars? For something different on Christmas week, I decided to pick a dream garage of red & green. To get an even amount of each color I decided to go ahead and pick one of each color for each of the categories.

If I actually won all auctions of the cars I chose during the year I would have spent $9,695,567. Making it an average of $62,151 for each vehicle. This is down around $1.5 million and nine thousand respectively.

The most expensive car I picked was once again in the Sport category, a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT Pinin Farina Coupe at $491,000. The most expensive auto in the Off-Road category was, like last year, another Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG at $205,000. The highest priced auto in the Touring category was a 2021 Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 at $253,000. There were 18 vehicles that went for over six figures. Last year there were 23, with two of those over a half million and one went for $1.1 million.

The least expensive car I picked was yet again from Off-Road category, a VW Beetle based 1977 Fargo Dune Buggy at a measly $5,100. The least expensive Touring vehicle was a no reserve 1999 Chevrolet K1500 Suburban LT 4×4 that sold for $9,300. The least expensive Sports car was a 1973 Porsche 914 that sold for $12,000. There was a 1969 Datsun 2000 Roadster that I “bid” $8,000 on, but there was no sale as the reserve wasn’t met. These four cars were the only ones that went for under five figures.

The oldest car I chose was a 1931 Ford Model A Pickup Hot Rod that set me back $68,000. There were 2 more cars selected from the 30’s, four more from the 40’s, 20 from the 50’s and twenty more from the 60’s. There were two dozen vehicles selected from the 70’s, 17 came from the 80’s, sixteen were from the 90’s and the 2000’s was the most popular decade again with a total of 25. There were 18 picked from 2010-2019 and the 2020’s accounted for the last nine of the 156 total. The newest cars were from the year 2022, and 3 of the 4 were just because one Monday for kicks I picked brand new cars and priced them to MSRP. Taking all vehicles into account, the average model year car was 1985 compared to last year’s 1986.

The cars came from 43 separate manufacturers, two more than last year. The most popular make was a tie between Porsche & Chevy with 16. The runner-up was another tie, VW & Ford came in at fourteen. Jeep was third with 11. There were 20 manufacturers with one car chosen and 10 more with just 2 models. Last year I picked only one car from Mazda, a lonely Miata, but this year there were 8 from Mazda, including four Miatas.

The most chosen model name this year was Type 2, AKA VW Bus with 7, Land Cruiser & Wrangler were the runners-up with 6 and 3rd place were Bronco, Cayman & Corvette with five picks. A little less than half, 76, were one and done model names.

Now, using fuzzy logic, the most popular car of this year, if it existed, would have been a 1957 Porsche Type 2 that costs $22,500 and the most random car, if it existed, would be a 1978 Mercedes-Benz Patrol that costs $50,500.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Here We Go Again Edition of SORT
As of Monday, August 8, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2000 Honda S2000 2003 Land Rover Discovery II HSE 1977 Honda Accord
First thing I’d do would be to add two 8″ red stripes accented by 1″ black stripes on each side. 🙂 This vehicle is located in Flemington, NJ. Hmm, that sounds familiar. I’m sure someone will remind me. The first car Donna & I bought together was a 1978 model identical to this while we were on Guam.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1973 Porsche 914 2.0 Sold for $23,750 on 8/7/22
Off-Road: 2003 Lexus LX470 Sold for $20,000 on 8/3/22
Touring: 2003 Mercedes-Benz SL500 Sold for $36,000 on 8/7/22

828 Days In The Making

The Blipshift T-Shirt of April 29, 2020 was called AsteRISK and I thought that maybe I’d buy one. But, I hesitated, so I missed out on it and it came to be called my biggest regret of the year.

Sometime early this year Blipshift started selling a bumper sticker with that statement on it and I thought maybe I should buy that. But, on second thought, the black bumper sticker just wouldn’t look good on the CTBNL’s silver bumper, so I didn’t.

Then in February I did buy one, just to have it before they stopped selling them. And you never know, our next car could be black. Which is exactly what happened. Not one we bought, but When we took our trip to Santa Fe we rented a Mazda CX-5 and it was black. I put the sticker on its back bumper and left it there for the 2 weeks we had the vehicle. Since then it has been stuck to the top of my tool box.

Occasionally Blipshift does reprint a particular design, usually in a different color, but they never did. This past Thursday and Friday, plus all next week, they ae celebrating their 10 year anniversary by reprinting the best designs from the past decade. Guess which one made the cut? AsteRISK did!

This time, 828 days later, I didn’t hesitate, I ordered one.

47,001 Reasons

I have a lot of reasons as to why I haven’t written anything real here, the Monday car posts don’t really count, in almost 2 weeks.

Fourteen of those reasons are I decided to rewatch, for possibly the 4th or 5th time, that 20-year old short-lived space western, Firefly.

A quartet of those reasons is I discovered The Brokenwood Mysteries. There are 8 seasons with a total of 36 episodes, but only 4 are available on Prime Video. Like a lot of mystery shows that tickle my fancy, this is one also has a quirky detective whose personality is mirrored in their car. Like Columbo with his old Peugeot 403 convertible and DCI Vera Stanhope with her Land-Rover Defender 90 Tdi. In this show, set in New Zealand, Senior Detective Inspector Mike Shepherd drives a 1971 Holden Kingswood. Come to think of it, all three of them come from the “almost leaving, but before going, turn around and ask another question” school of detectiving.

But, most of those reasons are because nothing exciting has happened to write about, until this morning. When I got in the Mini to run to the store the odometer read 47001.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

No Reserve Edition of SORT
As of Monday, August 1, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1973 Porsche 914 2.0 2003 Lexus LX470 2003 Mercedes-Benz SL500
After last week’s Reserve Not Met discussion we of course had another, the Chevy Wagon. For this week, to guarantee all the vehicles will sell, the three I chose are all “No Reserve” auctions.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1993 Mazda RX-7 R1 Sold for $70,500 on 7/27/22
Off-Road: 1982 Jeep Cherokee Sold for $25,500 on 7/26/22
Touring: 1951 Chevrolet Wagon Bid to $26,250 on 7/28/22

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Has The Car Market Bubble Burst Edition of SORT
As of Monday, July 25, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1993 Mazda RX-7 R1 1982 Jeep Cherokee 1951 Chevrolet Wagon
I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me that the car pricing bubble has burst, at least on BAT. There were probably a bunch of folks taking advantage of the wacko car market to get top dollar for their vehicles by setting the reserves on their auctions higher they might have several months ago. I’m basing this on the fact that a lot aren’t meeting the reserve recently.

As you can see below, 2 of 3 cars I picked last week didn’t get sold. Because I keep track of what each car I choose for these posts just so I can do a yearly wrap up (this is last year’s) I can tell you how many cars did not sell. From August 2020 to August 2021 of the 156 cars I chose a mere 3 came back as Reserve Not Met. This year from August 2021 to today of the 150 cars picked 15 have not met their reserve.

Ten of those fifteen have come in the last 3 months…

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1971 Alpine A110 Bid to $93,110 on 7/22/22
Off-Road: 1996 Land Rover Defender Bid to $37,500 on 7/20/22
Touring: 2001 BMW M3 Sold for $86,000 on 7/21/22

Aaah…

…I had a few ideas for posts this last week but I never got around to actually writing them here.

Because I haven’t written anything and the Miata has been driven a few times this week I lumped them all together below. As you can see the CTBNL went significant miles for the first time since last year and over two thirds of that number happened yesterday.

Took a nice drive early, to beat the heat, and did a quick backroad loop to a couple of small Oregon towns to take pictures of their post offices, Sprague River and Beatty.

171.2 miles on 5 drives since last Monday.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 52