QOTD: Witness to Auction Shenanigans?

Over the weekend at Monterey, RM Sotheby’s executed what will forever remain one of the worst screw-ups in auction history. With a piece of is-it-or-isn’t-it Porsche history on the block, the auctioneer started his patter at what the crowd (and the media screen) thought was thirty million dollars. That same media screen quickly rocketed to seventy mil before said auctioneer clarified he was saying seven-teen not seven-ty. Boos rained down upon the room and bidding predictably evaporated like chloroform. The car failed to sell.

Conspiracy theorists will forever debate what really happened, but our question for you today is this: what’s the biggest error — either in buying or selling — you’ve ever seen at a car auction?

Some are murmuring the house got caught in a dangerous game, one which allegedly happens at auctions across the nation. An auctioneer, eager to bump the price of a car, takes bids from the Coke machine at the back of the room when there is in fact only a single human bidder. This is bad at the thousand-dollar beater level, let alone at the rarified stratosphere in which this event was playing. We are not implying that happened this weekend.

As for purchase blunders, your author watched a former editor of this esteemed publication raise his hand at the sum of $250 for a knackered Ford Focus whose rear suspension was hanging at angles not approved by Blue Oval engineers. This, despite the obvious fact that no other human was marching in the vehicle’s direction and he could’ve bagged the car for $50. It should be noted this particular house had a proclivity for slapping outrageous fees on sale prices, so the Focus ended up costing nearly five hundred bucks out the door. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.

How about you? What mistakes (on either side of the gavel) have you witnesses in the auction lanes?

[Image: RM Auctions, Inc.]