During the 11 years David Gooding worked at Christie’s International auction house, he wondered if there was a more exciting way to sell collectible cars. It was too low key for his taste to have the vehicles “rolling art objects,” he calls them wheeled onto a stage with a black-velvet backdrop and a few plants for decoration, as was the practice.
Last month Gooding & Co.’s vision of the auction business found maximum expression at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance auction. Held in a tent next to the 18th fairway on the famous Pebble Beach Golf Links, the two-night event saw sales of $61 million worth of classic automobiles. Prize specimens included an 1884 De Dion (the oldest running automobile in the world), a 1931 Bentley that sold for $4.5 million and a 1973 Ferrari with less than 90 miles on the odometer.
To make the quality of the event equal to the merchandise, Gooding of Santa Monica contracted with Angel City Designs, an event production house in Van Nuys with a history of staging Hollywood extravaganzas. Angel City filled the 30,000-square-foot tent with a huge auctioneer’s podium and programmed individual lighting arrangements for each of the 136 cars on the block. One by one, the cars drove on stage, often with engines revving, for their two minutes in the spotlight.
Two screens showed live video of the cars and the current bid price in multiple currencies. Bids were accepted live or by phone.
“There are 1,200 to 1,500 people, very high-end, sitting for four hours in a tent looking at cars. You have to create an environment where they’ll pay attention,” said Mark Yumkas, president of Angel City Designs. “The cameras help sell the car, panning up and down, showing different angles, just like an awards show.”
Gooding put it this way: “You can put a Picasso in the closet, or you can present it the way it deserves.”
High production values add to the cost of the auction, but Gooding maintains he only charges the industry-standard 20 percent on each sale, 10 percent from the buyer and 10 from the seller. However, he collects more money because he believes the quality presentation tends to fetch a higher price from bidders. Gooding cited a Ferrari that he sold for $2 million a few days after a competitor sold a virtually identical car for $1 million.
While Gooding may have pioneered high-end production values in auctions, his strategy follows a larger trend in the event industry. “Guests have become really savvy they expect more from events,” said Alice Dubin, Los Angeles bureau chief for the trade publication BizBash. “Someone who’s spending almost $5 million on a car wants a full experience.”
Next year Gooding hopes to duplicate his success at Pebble Beach. The $61 million total this year nearly tripled the event’s previous record of $22 million.
