Craig Jackson discusses Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction

Barrett-Jackson had the most successful collector car auction in the company’s 50-year history with 1,857 vehicles sold for over $195.9 million, 1,153 pieces of automobilia for over $7.3 million and a grand total of more than $203.2 million in auction sales.

“Other than I’m physically exhausted, I feel great about the auction,” said Craig Jackson, CEO and chairman of Barrett-Jackson. “In the emails and the text message I’ve been getting, even from some of my competitors, congratulating me on one of the best auctions in history, period.”

Held at WestWorld in Scottsdale, Arizona the auction ran from January 22 to 30 and was the company’s first home auction since 2020 without attendance restrictions. A sense of normalcy was apparent as the company celebrated their 50^th anniversary a year late but with a collector car audience hungry to attend the centerpiece of Arizona Auction Week.

“I had so many people say, ‘I mentally needed this. This brought me back after two years, that I didn’t know we’d ever come back to this.’ And just so many people came up and thanked me like, well this is my business,” Jackson said. “They’re like, ‘No, thank you. You went above and beyond to make us feel good.’ And just across the board, my staff did a fantastic job. We’re all whooped. But we, we gave it everything we had.”

The auction was highlighted by more than $8.8 million of car sales for various charitable causes, with the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06, VIN 001, going for $3.6 million to Operation Homefront.

With a 100% sell-through rate and the collector car industry riding high, the 2022 Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction blew past its previous sales record in 2020.

“I just think we had robust online bidding, phone bidding, in person,” said Jackson. “It was beating 2020 by spades, which was the pinnacle before this. I think people were ecstatic, cars on the average bought about 10-15% above our estimates going in. And that seems be the way the market’s moving.”