Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction postponed to March
In January 2020 there were eight separate collector car auctions in and around Scottsdale, Arizona. Nearly 4000 vehicles were on offer, and total sales amounted to $244.1M. Since then we’ve had a little thing called COVID-19 that threw a wrench into just about every part of our lives, including the large live auction extravaganzas for which Scottsdale is the poster child.
As we’ve torn away the pages of our 2020 calendars, we’ve been wondering more and more how Scottsdale 2021 would look or even if it will happen at all.
Well, now we can confirm: Barrett-Jackson’s 2021 Scottsdale sale has been postponed until March.
“While every indication showed that our bidders, consignors and sponsors were behind our efforts to hold our auction next month, we decided it would be prudent at this time to safeguard everyone’s health,” said CEO and chairman Craig Jackson in a release Thursday. “We determined that moving our event to March 2021 seemed like the right thing to do to avoid the coronavirus spike that is currently being predicted.”
The huge sale at WestWorld had been scheduled for January 16–23, and in late October the Scottsdale-based company held a warm-up of sorts, with a socially-distanced, limited-attendance sale. But in recent weeks, with COVID infections skyrocketing around the country, we’d been hearing rumors the show would be shortened to three days due to local restrictions. We’re told the city of Scottsdale indeed had to do with the decision to cancel. Yet looking at the run list on Barrett-Jackson’s website it seems a low number of consignments may have also been a contributing factor.
The postponement is particularly unfortunate given that 2021 marks Barrett-Jackson’s 50th anniversary. In normal times, its signature January auction would surely have been a blowout.
Barrett-Jackson of course is not the only company that holds big auctions in January. Mecum’s annual Kissimmee sale—the world’s largest single collector car auction—is scheduled to go ahead January 7–16 with masking requirements, social distancing, and temperature screening.
In Scottsdale, RM Sotheby’s and Bonhams have announced sales with at least some in-person component. As of this writing, those sales are going forward. Gooding & Co. and Worldwide Auctioneers also have “Scottsdale” sales, although the former is actually taking place online, the latter in Auburn, Indiana.
