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 Like the vintage 1959 Riley that sold for $5,500. Or the classic
1951 "bullet-nose" Studebaker that went for even less - just $4,000.
By comparison, the 1962 Chrysler Imperial equipped with "triple
cigarette lighters" cost a fortune: all of $9,500.
There's a pecking order to the Monterey Car Week auctions that
culminate in the Concours. At the high end are the Bonhams auction
at the posh Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley (aka "the Quail") and the
Gooding auction at Pebble Beach, where the suggested bidding range
for a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT Series 1 (a "poor" cousin of the $38
million prize) was $4.5 million to $6 million.
Then there's Mecum. You can spend a lot of money at auctions
conducted by this Midwestern auction house with headquarters in
southeast Wisconsin. A 1969 Corvette L88 coupe, with a
430-horsepower engine, sold this week for $450,000.
 But you can also spend a whole lot less. The Mecum "DNA," as its
auction hands proudly explain, is "something for everybody." Its
Monterey auction is held at the Hyatt, not at the Quail. In the
Gooding tent at Pebble Beach you see guys wearing shorts with
blazers. In the Mecum tent they wear shorts and tee shirts.
Untucked, of course.
The 1959 Riley was a natural fit here. Riley is a now-obscure
British brand that was launched in the late 1890s, then bankrupted
and merged in the 1930s and 1940s before meeting its demise in 1969.
The 1959 1.5 four-door Saloon model (named for its 1.5-liter, 68
horsepower engine) has chrome-laden front face that gives the car
lots of personality, if not a high price.
"It was so cute I had to take a second look at it, and before I knew
it I was bidding on it," said the buyer, John Yosgott of Sacramento,
Calif. The 65-year-old Yosgott, a retired registered nurse, doesn't
have a car collection. He bought the Riley for his wife. "As soon as
I told her about it she wanted it," he said.
Less-expensive still was the 1951 Studebaker Champion sedan, with a
pointed protrusion mounted in the front grille that's known as the
"bullet nose." The Champion was introduced in the months following
World War Two; a few years later it got the bullet-nose design that
was distinct but polarizing.
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The Champion got a nose job in 1952, so the 1951 model was the last
Champion bullet nose. Studebaker itself, which was headquartered in
South Bend, Ind., collapsed in 1966.
The most distinctive styling feature on the 1962 Chrysler Imperial
was on the back end instead of the front grille. The garish tail
fins of the late 1950s were quickly disappearing, but the Imperial
sported "gunsight" tail lamps that looked like, well, a truncated
rifle sight. The car also had a push-button automatic transmission
and a triple-socket cigarette lighter, both of which seem like jokes
today but were deemed modern conveniences back then.
Mecum's Monterey auction featured other cheap thrills too.
A 1963 Ford Falcon in pristine condition went for $9,500. A 1976
Porsche 914 Targa fetched $14,500. Another Porsche sold for even
less, just $14,000. It was a 1960 108L, one of Porsche's
lesser-known models. That's because it belonged to a line of
vehicles that Porsche has long-since discontinued: farm tractors.
Paul Ingrassia, managing editor of Reuters, is the author of three
books on automobiles, and has been covering the industry since 1985.
The car he drives is ... a red one.
(Reporting by Paul Ingrassia; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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