GM classic cars on the auction block
General Motors is auctioning at least 200 of its vintage vehicles to shave off extra costs. Jeremy Hobson reports some classic cars will likely be hits, but others might not fly off the auction block so easily.
Classic cars are displayed at General Motors headquarters in Detroit, Mich. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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Scott Jagow: GM is cleaning out its closet and holding a yard sale. Obviously, it needs the cash and it needs to cut costs. So, next week, GM will hold a huge vintage car auction. Maybe you can get your hands on a beauty. Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson has more.
Jeremy Hobson: GM will try to sell at least 200 vintage vehicles, including a 1986 presidential limo replica used in the movie The American President.
Greg Wallace, who manages the GM Heritage Center, says getting rid of the cars will mean a savings of $2,000 per car per year in maintenance costs.
Greg Wallace: We're looking at everything now and if it doesn't serve a purpose, we're not going to store it or maintain it.
There are some beautiful classic cars hitting the auction block...like a 1904 Oldsmobile Touring Runabout. And then there are some . . . well . . . not so classic.
Wallace: We had kept the first Saturn. But we also kept the millionth Saturn, the two millionth Saturn, the three millionth Saturn. At some point in time, you say to yourself is the two millionth and three millionth as important as the first and last Saturns?
Of course, who knows what the market for the three millionth Saturn will be like at the auction, not to mention all of the other vintage cars, in the middle of a recession and a credit crunch.
I'm Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Ashland, VA, 01/16/2009
Here's the list of cars being sold at Barrett-Jackson
http://www.motorauthority.com/gm-selling-252-classic-cars-and-concepts-from-heritage-museum.html
From Ashland, VA, 01/16/2009
Two millionth and three millionth is correct. GM didn't store the second million and third million cars, they sold them. Or tried, anyway.
From Windsor Mill, MD, 01/13/2009
The comment by Lazlo Zoltan is stupid.
who cares about such a criticism.The subject matter is GM selling a part of its heritage collection.
01/08/2009
"two millionth, three millionth"??? you mean to say "second" and "third"... Poor grammar demonstrates a lack of intelligence. Considering Wallace association with GM it shouldn't surprise anyone however.
From Hamden, CT, 01/07/2009
Do we have a list of the vehicles that will be auctioned? Year, Make, Model. Any Opel models included?
Thanks, Doug Golden
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