RM Classic Car Auction

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RM Auctions (as the auction branch of the classic car company is known) is the world's largest classic car auction company. RM Auctions is a Canadian company which maintains offices in Canada, the United States of America and England. The companies headquarters are located in Blenheim, Ontario. RM runs a number of auction events which can be broken into two major categories: catalogue, and non-catalogue sales.

Catalogue sales are those for which RM publishes a high quality book detailing the back story and individual details of each and every car in the sale. The catalogues are included with registration to bid at any of the sales, but subscriptions are often sought by enthusiasts because of the high production values and caliber of writing. The value of the vehicles offered for sale at a catalogue event far exceeds the values of vehicles offered at a non-catalogue event. Vehicles values tend to range from around twenty-five thousnad US dollars to nearly ten million US dollars. The number of lots offered for sale during a catalogue event rarely exceed 200 and has been as low as 31. The catalogue sales employ a British auctioneer by the name of Peter Bainbridge to ensure a more reserved pace.

Non-catalogue sales tend to focus more on mainstream collector cars. These sales tend to have far more cars and the vehicles tend to be more affordable. These vehicles often range from a few thousand dollars to an upper limit of a few hundred thousand. The non-catlogue sales usually employ American style auctioneers (the oldest and best known example of this style is Kruse International who supplied auctioneers to RM until 1999).

The regularly scheduled events of the RM schedule include (not including one time estate sales):

  1. Vintage Motor Cars in Arizona
  2. The Florida Collector Car Auction
  3. Vintage Motor Cars at Amelia Island
  4. Toronto International Spring Classic Car Auction
  5. Michigan International Spring Classic Car Auction
  6. Ferrari - Leggenda e Passione
  7. Vintage Motor Cars at Meadow Brook Hall
  8. Monterey Sports and Classic Car Auction
  9. Vintage Motor Cars at Hershey
  10. Toronto International Fall Classic Car Auction
  11. Automobiles of London

RM also hosts quite a few single event sales, usually focused on single collections.

RM also has other divisions, including a restoration shop which is world renowned for their caliber of work. With impressive regularity RM wins at the most impressive concour events around the world. Their highlights include several Pebble Beach Concour d'Elegance wins in the last few years, including an unprecedented three best in show wins the Pebble Beach concours d' elegance in a six year periord. Other wins include multiple Best in Show awards at the Meadow Brook Concours and Amelia Island as well.

People outside of the industry are often unaware of RM Auctions. RM has chosen at times to preserve the privacy and atmosphere of their catalogue events by limiting what sort of filming may occur, to the detriment of public awareness. Often wealthy clients wish to remain unknown to the general public for many reasons. Purchasing expensive cars is an obvious mark of affluence. Client's are highly valued resources in the auction business. The result of which is that rival auction houses will often attempt to proposition known client's, many of whom do not wish the attention.

[edit] Comparison to Barrett-Jackson

While both RM and Barrett-Jackson conduct classic car auctions, the two companies are quite different in their style and product offerings. Barrett-Jackson is more visible because of its extensive television coverage on the SPEED channel.

  1. RM's average sale is substantially higher than BJ's, which is a reflection of the type of automobiles offered, which tend to be rarer, and from the higher-priced end of the market.
  2. While BJ boasts of multimillion dollar hot rods, customs, muscle cars, etc, the RM Auctions tends to specialize in historically important and unmodified cars, such as prewar American Classics, and high profile sports and racing cars, such as the LeMans winning 1962 Ferrari 330 TRI/LM driven by world champion Phil Hill and sold by RM at their sale at the Ferrari Factory in Maranello, Italy.
  3. Barrett-Jackson is shown on Speed Channel, whereas RM Auctions' sales are shown on Discovery HD Theater, making it the only classic car auction to be in HD.
  4. RM's auctions are conducted in the British style, using an English auctioneer, making the bidding much easier to understand and more professional sounding.
  5. BJ's auctions take place over several days, up to twelve hours per day, and involve many hundreds of automobiles. RM's auctions typically offer less than a hundred cars and last about four hours.

[edit] External links