I volunteered again for the RM Auction in Fort Lauderdale on April 6th and 7th. The time put in is the major fund raising event for the Sunshine Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers’ Club.
The cars start inside the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center. This year there was something else going on at the center, so our space was smaller than in years past. We only had about 340 cars. The first team pulled the cars from the hall and drove them to a staging area outside the building. My team drove the cars from there to the entrance next to the auction block. We were then pushed to the foot of the ramp and drove it up onto the auction block. After the bidding we were pushed to a turntable and out of the building. Then we drove to the entrance where the third team pulled them into the building; sold cars over here and still-for-sale cars over there. We were not supposed to run the cars inside (except for the drive up on the block.)
My first two cars were a 63 Renault Caravelle and a 59 Autobianchi Bianchina Transformable. Both were small cars with stick shifts with unmarked shift pattern2. Then I got a big car, a 93 Rolls Royce Silver Spur II. It started once when I tried it. Then it died and had to be pushed or towed the rest of the time.
Later on I got a 41 Lincoln with a 12 cylinder engine. Once the battery was replaced, it ran fine. I drove some other cars on Friday, but lost the list.
One of my Saturday cars was a 61 AMC Metropolitan Convertible. My first car was a 57 Metropolitan, so I was right at home. Other cars included a 91 Alpha Romeo Spider. That was a very nice well behaved car.
The 60 Mercedes-Benz 300d ‘Adenaur’ took two of us to figure out how to start it.
A 68 Jaguar D-type Alloy Recreation with right hand drive nearly had me trapped. I think I’m going to have to get some yoga/gymnastics/contortionist lessons before next year.
There were a number of other cars such as Porche’s and Corvettes, which I didn’t record.
My final ride was a 63 Volkswagen Deluxe “23 Window” Microbus. The final bid was $170,000 and didn’t meet the reserve.
