It takes a lot of chutzpah to believe you can walk into Scottsdale, Arizona's upscale backyard and think you can throw an auction while the "other guys" are in town on the same weekend. The other guys are, of course, the Barrett-Jackson organization, well into its third decade at providing customers (both buyers and sellers) a place they can trade their paper money for steel dreams.
But being the little auction house that could, the Russo & Steele auction not only recently delivered the goods at its fifth-annual event, but also made an international splash with the auction of a factory-works Cobra for a record-setting $2,133,025! That was more than double the previous record for a factory 289, and though Russo & Steele knew bidding would be high, even the optimistic R/S organizers were a bit astonished when the "sold" hammer fell. The R/S auction was a succes seven without the high-priced Cobra, but with it sales were over $10,576,000-a number that translated to a 50 percent increase in sales over last year. Though smaller and more intimate, R/S doesn't lack when it comes to the types of cars it offers: typically musclecars and hot rods, with a little bit of Euro-built and one-offs thrown in for good measure. For more on this show or upcoming auctions (one is held in Monterey, CA, each year, too), visit its Web site at www.russoandsteele.com.