[Lee Stewart]

Where the Chips Fell at RM Sotheby’s Palm Beach Online Auction

Last Friday and Saturday were the final two days of RM Sotheby's annual Palm Beach collector car auction, which was moved to a virtual online auction room following social distancing guidance from authorities. How were the auction results? All told, not at all horrible given the current economic uncertainty and the last-minute format change. RM Sotheby's sold 69 percent of its inventory, and while that's not a strong figure in a typical collector car auction, this sale was anything but typical.

Of interest, RM Sotheby's notes that it had nearly 900 registered bidders for the auction, which is claimed to be 23 percent more bidders than the average in-person registration for the past four RM Sotheby's Palm Beach auctions. Some 36 percent of those bidders were new to RM Sotheby's, which means this online sale helped reach out to buyers who don't frequent traditional live classic car auctions. We'd guess there were also a fair number of folks looking for bargains. Though many cars failed to meet even their low-end pre-sale estimates, it seems that classic mid-century American cars from the '40s, '50s and '60s, along with pre-war cars, were the hardest hit with many going unsold. We'll venture that buyers for those cars are fewer and fewer, and buying a car online just isn't for septa- and octogenarians. Here are seven cars that caught our eye and will help shape the 2020 collector car market going forward.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/enth...cid=spartanntp