Tag Archives: Auctions

Influential 1951 Hirohata Mercury custom headed to auction

An icon of the custom car era, Bob Hirohata’s 1951 Mercury customized by the Barris shop, will go up for grabs at the Mecum Kissimmee (Florida) auction to be held Jan. 6-16.

The rise of custom car culture paralleled hot rod culture in the post World War II period. Many shops in Southern California began customizing 1949-’51 Mercs, using the slab-sided bodies as blank canvases for their vision of what cars could be. Chopping the tops, channeling the bodies, and shaving the trim for a smoother look transformed what was otherwise deemed a frumpy design.

The Hirohata Merc is viewed as the pinnacle of Merc lead sled design, and is recognized as the most famous custom of all time. Built by the Barris brothers, George and Sam, at Barris Kustom, it received all the right changes to make it look sleek and elegant, but not overstyled.

The main changes reworked the profile. The shop chopped the top four inches in the front and seven inches in the rear, leaned the the rear window forward, and replaced the B-pillars with channel stock to give the coupe a hardtop look. To give the car its low stance, the Barris brothers cut the front coil springs, C-sectioned the rear frame, de-arched the rear leaf springs, and set the rear on two 1.5-inch lowering blocks.

1951 Hirohata Mercury

1951 Hirohata Mercury

Along the sides, the Barris brothers replaced the straight fender trim with rounded trim from a 1952 Buick Riviera that provides a delineation for a two-tone Ice Green and Organic Dark Green paint scheme. The bright color was a departure from the many dark colors on customs of the day. Large fender bulges were added to the rear, fronted by functional handmade scoops decorated with teeth from a 1952 Chevy grille.

At the front, the grille was shortened and a new handmade grille bar inserted. The bumper was modified, the headlights frenched (the trim rings molded into the fenders for a cleaner look), and wraparound parking light moldings were made using 1950 Ford parts. The hood lost its chrome and was extended and reshaped to fit with the new grille opening. The rear was given frenched 1952 Lincoln taillights.

Inside, the car received a rolled and pleated upholstery. Noted pinstriper Von Dutch applied his art to the dash, and Hirohata himself made his own teardrop dash knobs from plastic.

1951 Hirohata Mercury

1951 Hirohata Mercury

Once the customization was complete, Hirohata had the engine swapped with the mill from a 1953 Cadillac, earning the car the nickname “Mercillac.”

The car won several awards, was featured in numerous magazines, and appeared in the 1955 movie “Runnin’ Wild.” Hirohata drove it for a few years, then sold it in 1955. In 1959, a high school student named Jim McNeil found it on a used car lot. He drove it until 1964, and then put it away. It resurfaced in 1989, when Rod & Custom editor Pat Ganahl coaxed McNeil into restoring the car with the magazine’s help.

The revived Hirohata Merc appeared at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2015, and was then added to the National Historic Vehicle Register.

Now, this piece of automotive history can be yours. We’ll see if it sells and how much it goes for in January.

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The last 1987 Buick Grand National ever built heads to auction with 33 miles on odometer

The last Buick Grand National ever made is heading to auction with Barrett-Jackson at the company’s flagship Scottsdale, Arizona, auction scheduled for Jan. 22-30, 2022.

The Grand National was Buick’s muscle car for the 1980s. A performance version of the Buick Regal, it used a turbocharged 3.8-liter  V-6 instead of a traditional V-8, extracting a surprising amount of performance from General Motors’ aging rear-wheel drive G-body platform.

The turbo V-6 was good for 245 hp and 330 lb-ft of torque, and was coupled to a 4-speed automatic transmission. Buick also launched a GNX closeout special (short for Grand National Experimental) for the 1987 model year, which upped output to 276 hp and 360 lb-ft of torque.

The last 1987 Buick Grand National (photo via Barrett-Jackson)

The last 1987 Buick Grand National (photo via Barrett-Jackson)

The 1987 model year was the Grand National’s last because GM dropped the G-body in favor of a new front-wheel-drive platform for the Regal. A standard Grand National rather than a GNX, the last car was built on Dec. 11, 1987, marking not only the end of Grand National production, but also the end of production at GM’s Pontiac, Michigan, assembly plant, which had been building cars since 1927.

The last Grand National has been treated as a celebrity since it rolled off the assembly line 34 years ago. It’s been kept in a climate-controlled storage space and only brought out for special appearances, such as Buick’s 2003 centennial celebration in Flint, Michigan. It also appeared in the 2012 Grand National documentary “Black Air.” Today, it shows just 33 miles, according to the auction listing.

While there can only be one last Grand National, several other low-mileage examples have emerged from hibernation recently. Barrett-Jackson featured a GNX with just 8.7 miles earlier this year, and a 49-mile Grand National went up for auction in 2018. An unsold GNX with 202 miles was listed on Bring a Trailer last year, and also appeared on Jay Leno’s Garage.

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Mecum to offer diverse Todhunter performance cars at Arizona auction

The Steve Todhunter collection of 20 fine sports and performance cars, ranging from seven low-mileage late-model Ferraris to a 1965 Shelby 427 Cobra FAM once owned by the late actor Paul Walker, will be presented by Mecum Auctions during its Glendale, Arizona, sale from March 18 to 20.

Mecum expects 1,200 collector vehicles to cross the block during its third annual auction at State Farm Stadium, where the Arizona Cardinals play their NFL home games. The sale will be held live onsite with pandemic restrictions including mandatory face masks and social distancing.

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The Shelby 427 Cobra is one of two FAM special-edition cars

Among the American muscle cars is a 1969 Dodge Daytona, a winged warrior with superspeedway aerodynamics powered by a 440/375-horsepower Magnum V8, and one of just 92 examples produced with 4-speed manual transmissions.

Other classic muscle cars include a matched set of 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 fastbacks, one in Grabber Blue and the other in Grabber Green.

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The 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 in Grabber Blue

The 427 Cobra, chassis number CSX 1010, is painted bright red with a tan interior and is one of two FAM edition cars built by AC Cars of England, which supplied the Ace sports car bodies and chassis for the original Shelby Cobras. FAM is derived from Carroll Shelby’s famous exclamation, “Ferrari’s ass is mine!” that he reputedly said after losing the 1964 World Manufacturers Championship to the Italian racing team.

CSX 1010 has a rolled aluminum body with FAM 427 Special Edition badges in place of the Cobra’s customary emblems. The car’s value could be boosted by its past ownership by Walker, the co-star of the Fast and Furious movie franchise, who was killed in a crash in 2013.

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Steve Todhunter in the midst of his red Ferraris and Cobra

The cars from Todhunter’s collection are in superb condition, Mecum noted, with an emphasis on high-performance examples. His Ferrari group comprises special models from 1992 through 2018, each with exceptionally low mileage.

Another late-model exotic is a purpose-built 2006 Saleen S7 Twin Turbo, one of just 14 examples of the America supercar and with just 1,167 miles on its odometer.

 
The rare Saleen S7 Twin Turbo is a very-low mileage example

“Not only is Todhunter a car collector, he is perhaps the quintessential example of such and a man with an eye for evolution,” Mecum noted in a news release. “From the humble horsepower heavyweights of the golden era of muscle to the rarest of the Mopar machines and, ultimately, to Ferrari, Todhunter’s preference for powerful and impressive automobiles has followed a path of development focused on quality over quantity.”

For more information about Mecum’s Arizona sale, visit the auction website.

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RM Sotheby’s lands a unicorn for its Paris auction

An automotive unicorn, that was (and is) the Isdera Commendatore 112i, a one-off creation that debuted in 1993 and that now has been consigned to RM Sotheby’s annual Paris auction, scheduled for Retromobile week in February 2021.

The car will be offered at no reserve and RM Sotheby’s has not announced a pre-sale estimated value for the car, however noting that,  “It would not be surprising to see the Commendatore 112i attracting lots of attention at concours events in the coming years, alongside comparable boutique supercars developed in the 1990s, such as the Koenigsegg CC8S or Pagani Zonda C12s.”

Isdera is short for — take a deep breath — Ingenieurgesellschaft fur Styling, Design, und Racing mbH of Leonberg, Germany. The company was founded by Eberhard Schulz, a designer and engineer who built his first sports car, the Erator GTE, in 1971. He later worked at Porsche, and then joined B&B gmbH & Co Auto KG of Frankfurt, where in 1978 he helped develop the CW311 prototype, a car based on Mercedes-Benz mechanicals and displayed at the Frankfurt show.

RM Sotheby’s reports that Schulz went on his own in 1982 with Isdera, which a year later presented the Isdera Spyder, a mid-engine sports car powered by 3.2- and 3.6-liter 6-cylinder Mercedes engines, at the Geneva show. He followed up a year later with the Imperator, a V8-powered coupe with a top speed of 180 mph. RM Sotheby’s adds that as many as 20 examples of the Imperator were produced, the last in 1991.

But what Schulz really wanted to do, we’re told, was to develop a production version of the CW311, and thus the Commendatore 112i, which he named in honor of Enzo Ferrari.

The car has a 6.o-liter Mercedes V12 rated at more than 400 horsepower and a one-off flywheel and modified RUF Porsche 6-speed transmission. The low-slung aerodynamic body was tested in the Mercedes wind tunnel, where it recorded an 0.306 coefficient of drag and was judged capable of more than 200 mph.

The car developed something of a cult following after being featured in the 1997 Need for Speed II video game and, after an infusion of money from a Swiss consortium, the Commendatore was displayed as “the Silver Arrow” at the 1999 Frankfurt show.

Without details on what happened in the interim, RM Sotheby’s reports that Isdera, which does consulting research and development for a variety of automakers and is working its own electric-powered GT, reacquired the car in 2016 and returned it to its 1993 specification. 

“Offered for sale in this specification, the car boasts its correct BBS wheels, Porsche Arctic Silver paintwork, Recaro blue and black trim and the iconic Isdera periscope rearview mirror,” RM Sotheby’s adds.

“Today, it has covered less than 10,500 km from new. Having been rebuilt with road-use in mind, the car is currently registered in Germany and was previously registered in Switzerland, showcasing that this is no museum piece, and a car best enjoyed on the open road.

“It is accompanied by an intriguing history file, as well as its certificate of authenticity from Isdera, confirming it to be the only example in existence. Offered directly from Isdera, this is undoubtably one of the most interesting one-off automobiles built in the 1990s.”

The Lamborghini collection

In addition to the Isdera Commendatore, RM Sotheby’s announced that its Paris sale will feature a single-consignor collection of Lamborghinis, including a 1967 400 GT 2+2, a 1968 Espada Series 1, a 1969 Islero GTS, a 1971 Miura P400 SV, a 1977 Countach LP400 ‘Periscopio’ and a 1984 Countach LP500S.

Because of ongoing coronavirus concerns, RM Sotheby’s added that the Paris auction will be a two-part sale with a live-streamed sale February 13 and a time-based Online Only that follows.

For more information, visit the RM Sotheby’s website.

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