Friday, March 8th or Day 2 at Amelia Island stepped up the action and featured the highly anticipated Gooding & Company Auction, wherein David Gooding and Gooding specialist Hans Wurl joined auctioneer Charlie Ross on the podium. Always efficient, effective, and above all – entertaining, Mr. Ross continues to bring his unique brand of professionalism and humor to the auction stage.
I’ve happily witnessed Charlie’s work on the auction podium several times in person and many times on the live internet feed, and it never ceases to amaze me how he referees the auction and manages to keep bidders straight and how he assiduously refuses to humor any bidders playing games as the bidding takes place. All with a smile or many witty comments. His silent “Who’s on First” repartee with David Gooding at Amelia in 2015 while a flash thunderstorm caused an audio-system failure remains one of my favorite of all auction moments. I wish I video footage of it! This year, as always, Charlie, David, and the entire Gooding & Company team epitomized grace under pressure at Amelia Island.
With 76 of 89 lots sold for an 85 percent sell-through rate according to Hagerty coverage, Gooding & Company realized $21.4 million in total sales at the time of writing, with an enviable average sale price of nearly $282,000 per car. Several collections were offered for sale, with quite a number of iconic competition cars, densely populated by Porsche, represented. Full Classic greats were not ignored, however, with a 1930 Packard Series 734 Speedster garnering $1,765,000.
The strong representation of competition cars on the Gooding docket was highly appropriate, given Amelia’s close proximity to Daytona, the track of so many stunning Porsche international racing triumphs, as well as Jacksonville, the home of the legendary Brumos Porsche racing equipe. While RM Sothebys is definitely the unqualified “800-pound Gorilla” at Amelia Island (and most everywhere else), Gooding & Company delivered the goods with 6 of the Top 10 sale results when the smoke cleared at the Friday, March 8th auction slugfest at Amelia Island. Kudos to the Gooding & Company team, which will quite likely bring a Pebble Beach lineup to stun the world’s auction watchers in August.
Update: On Monday, March 11th, Gooding & Company has announced that thanks to some post-auction deals, its results at Amelia Island were even better than first announced, totaling more than $22 million. Other achievements include the highest sell-through rate at Amelia Island this year, the highest price achieved for a Prewar car (the stunning and rare 1930 Packard 734 Speedster Runabout at $1,765,000), and the highest price realized for a Porsche (the 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder Weissach at $1,490,000) across all auction houses.