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Roar of the Antique. While their risks are lower on the ground, old-car fanciers yield nothing to the airplane addicts in their fervor for the old and authentic. Proof of their enthusiasm was the 20,000 who showed up last Sunday in Brookline, Mass., to preview Parke-Bernet's old-car auction of 65 antique and classic models. For antique collectors, brass is gold, since 1915 is the year when most designers stopped using brass as trim. Thus, when a bright yellow 1913 Mercer Raceabout, model 35-J, with a "monocle" windshield, restored by retired Los Angeles Fireman Harry Johnson, was driven into the auction tent, it rated a round of applause.
It also rated a world-record auction price. With the bid at $35,000 (already past the previous record high of $31,000), Johnson gunned the engine; with the throaty 56-h.p. roar, the bidding shot to $40,000, did not stop until it reached $45,000.
The Mercer 35-J's new owner is Harry Resnick, 49, whose four-year-old collection of old autos in Ellenville, N.Y., is already up to 60 cars. To further fill out his collection, Resnick also laid down $37,500 for a sleek, maroon 1966 Duesenberg four-door sedan (body by Ghia), $8,000 for a bright blue 1924 Amilcar three-place sport model CGS 3, and $15,500 for a 1916 Biddie Victoria touring car. Bidding right along with Resnick was the biggest old-car buff of all, William Harrah, owner of Nevada's Harrah's gambling clubs and the world's largest antique-auto collection (1,300 cars). Harrah kept his bids modest, acquired only four autos. "Exotic, glamorous cars are going for very high prices," Harrah noted, "run-of-the-mill stuff for very low."
Stuck with Goldfinger. Buyers of the less expensive models seemed even more excited than those in the high-priced market. Mrs. William Appleton of Newton, Mass., for instance, was so thrilled about owning a 1933 Rolls-Royce coupe with custom coachwork by Freestone and Webb that right after the sale she couldn't remember how much she had bid ($5,400). John and Elizabeth Harriet took a chance on a tiller-steered 1907 Sears Runabout, bid in for $850, only afterward discovered that their antique had been found under a haystack ten miles from their home.
About the only chagrined man at the auction was Boston Real Estate Dealer Mark Gibbons, 41, who had put on the block the massive yellow and black 1937 Rolls-Royce Sedanca de Ville used by Goldfinger in the James Bond movie. Gibbons bought it when, after a fenderside chat, he asked the owner to start it up—and found it was already running. But last week bids failed to meet Gibbons' reserve price of $11,000, which leaves him with a problem. "You can't drive it in the daytime," he says. "It attracts too much attention."