Broad Arrow grosses $10.17m at West Palm Beach

After the pizazz of Monterey Week and the $20m No Reserve Jim Taylor collection event in October, it was time for some heavy lifting over two days in Florida, when the new arrivals on the US auction scene had 182 lots to move on, each with a pre-sale average of $131k.

It was a typical North American regional auction, one of the more upmarket ones, certainly, but contained only three entries estimated exceeding $1m. None of them – McLaren Senna/Porsche Carrera GT/Lamborghini SVJ 63 Coupé – found buyers.

Top-selling car on the day was one of the recent darlings of the modern Porsche scene, a 2016 Porsche 911R that went for $500,000 gross, $450,000 net. Estimated at $500k to $600k, the car was presented Porsche's official 'Communication Colour' of White with Red stripes (a bit boring) and had covered just 193 miles.         

The rest of the catalogue was a mix of traditional ‘Happy Days’ Americana combined with some British and Italian classics and more modern sporting roadsters and saloons. In other words, a typical wide-ranging local market sale organised by Donnie Gould, another of the refugees from Canadian giant RM Sotheby’s.

There were no real surprises, but the sell-through percentage by number of 64% is lower than the average for these types of events, not helped by only a quarter offered at No Reserve.

Broad Arrow Auctions at West Palm Beach, 18-19 November 2022 - results

Total gross cars: $10,174,432
Number of cars not sold: 65
Number of cars withdrawn: 7
Total number of cars: 182
Percentage cars sold by number: 64%
Percentage by value average low/high estimate: 38%
Percentage of cars sold below low estimate: 79%
Percentage of cars sold not met avge of estimates: 88%
Percentage of cars sold met/exceeded top estimate: 7%
Average value of cars sold: $86,961
Average year of cars offered: 1978
Percentage of cars offered at No Reserve: 24%

Photo by Broad Arrow Auctions