Friday at Barrett-Jackson!

[Mike Phillips]

Friday at Barrett-Jackson - January 21st, 2006


What can you say about the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona except for Wow! The cars the people and the passion in the air creates a contagious excitement that you're powerless to resist and and completely immersed in once you pass through the gates!

Once I arrived I swung by the the Meguiar's booth to talk shop with my teammates and catch-up with Scott, aka bunker on our forum who lives here in Arizona.





Barry was there working in the booth along with a wide selection of Meguiar's management and of course Mike Kennedy and his staff that are a part of our Special Events Team.

Next we moved on to the staging tent where cars are brought-up from the field below and organized and prepared for their turn to go over the blocks.



It's a lot of fun to hang-out under the staging tent as you get a chance to see and inspect each car before it goes over the auction block.

[Mike Phillips]

Here are some of the cars and truck in this case under the staging tent around noon on Friday.

Here's a 1964 Ford Galaxies Convertilbe




Have you ever seen a fully restored 1948 Dodge Power Wagon? This truck went for $48,000.00!



Here's a recreation of Eleanor...







Here's a custom 1960 Ford Starliner.... You don't see many of these...










Hey! Who's that in the reflection shot?






Under the shade of the tent and on TV the finishes on all these cars looks good, but I captured some shots to show you what the human eye see when you're standing right next to them...

[Mike Phillips]

After the Galaxie was pulled forward, out of the tent, I captured the true condition of the finish while the sun was shining down on it...



Then I went inside and started to circle around as there were so many people the only place to go is around the crowd to the very back.

Here's shot of the Galaxie on stage from the back of the auction...




Then I made my way down the middle of the crowd and captured this shot.

[Mike Phillips]

I worked my way up to an area right below the ramp leading off the stage and took a few more photos from there, when the Starliner rolled onto the block I walked up on stage to snag some photos...




In most cases, my Cannon Digital Rebel does not capture swirls very well, basically they don't look as bad as they do in real life. I forgot my Sony which I use at our Saturday Detailing Classes because it does a very good job of capturing swirls, point is the swirls on this Starliner were not that bad, but they are worse than these photos show and the bigger point is that a majority of the cars at this auction have swirls and they don't have to have them, they just need someone who knows what they're doing to polish them out.



Close-Up of the same area




It's also pretty busy up here on the stage so it can be hard to frame-up a good shot with all the people walking around the cars inspecting them, but you do what you can...






And there it goes down the ramp... you can actually feel the entire ramp shake and jiggle as the cars leave the stage and roll down to leave...



Note the throngs of people behind the ramp... after I got on stage it really started to pack in...

[Mike Phillips]

Some of the very high-end cars had very nice finishes even under these lighting condition, but most of the cars in general looked like they could use some swirl removal even with a simple procedure such as going over the car with M80 Speed Glaze with a W-8006 foam polishing pad on our G100 Dual Action Polisher.

A few cars were on the other extreme and could really use a full-blown swirl removal...








This red Corvette came up after the Jaguar and the entire finish was swirled out like this...



It would be nice to hold one of our detailing classes for the owners of cars going to Barrett-Jackson about a month before the event...

[Mike Phillips]

After a couple of hours went by the Speed Vision camera crew showed up...




You know who has the most fun at Barrett-Jackson? The Drivers!




I snagged a lot of photos of the drivers to show you how much fun they're having! Lucky Dogs!


Who's this guy?

[Mike Phillips]

More photos to come... I have to head back over to the auction and try to find a place to park and if I'm lucky... maybe I can work my way back up onto the stage...

Here's a parting shot... look at all the people!

[gb387]

Great photos Mike, thanks for posting them.

I am amazed that the finishes on these vehicles look like that! You would think the owners would want them to look their best all the time even more so when they are up for auction.

Eleanor recreation...

[Tim Lingor]

Hi Mike,

You Lucky Dog!!! I wish I could be there that close to the action!!


Oh..the guy in the picture is Bill Goldberg, a professional wrestler!

Tim

[Mike Phillips]

Originally posted by gb387
Great photos Mike, thanks for posting them.

I am amazed that the finishes on these vehicles look like that! You would think the owners would want them to look their best all the time even more so when they are up for auction.

Eleanor recreation...

You would think that, but from my experience most of these guys just don't know which product to use or how to use them, or they're at the mercy of some detailer who often times also doesn't know what products to use or how to use them.

The lights are harsh at this event , but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of the the finishes on these cars could use some help...


I have a ton of photos to upload that focuses more on the cars and fun, but I know you guys were interested in what the finishes really looked like compared to what you see on TV

Have to go... I'll try to post more tonight!

[Chris W]

Great pictures! I was amazed watching on TV how some of the cars were still dirty, there was a 930 that looked like no one even washed it.

[DetailManiac]

Yes nice pic's indeed, i to was shocked that some cars had
so much swirls and tiny scratches on them and i was wondered
that they didn't took the time or effort to remove them.
It would sell a lot better IMHO

P.s. Thx Mike

[n2_space]

Wow... thanks for the pics... they scare me and make me sad though!

[RLdetail]

You could see the condition of the paint on some of the higher priced cars as they went over them 100 times as it was being bid on.
It's sad that someone could put that much time and money into a car and not spend the extra time or money to polish it or pay to have it done.
For that kind of money some of those should have been flawless beyond belief.

[ViperArry]

Mike,

Did you bid on any of the cars?

It would be cool for Meguiar's to buy a car with this bad swirl marks on it....
Totally detail it....

And sell it again next year.