[93 Anniversary]

I'm trying to answer the question of the person who asked for insight into the BaT auction process. I've bought two cars from BaT and sold three, so I'm fairly familiar. I am a fan, but do realize they are having some difficulty transitioning now that their volume is high.

The best thing is that the cars are vetted. When my car goes online I expect that a number of you real SVX experts will see a bolt or bracket out of place that I didn't even know existed. You will chime in about all the pros of an SVX (many) and the cons (can you say "transmission").

The net result is that the buyer will have far more confidence in knowing what they are getting than either EBAY or Mecum.

I will also try to get some regular BaT folks to come out and drive my car and provide their honest opinion.

I collect cars that meet both of the following: 1) at or near the bottom of the depreciation curve, and 2) interest me. So I track prices. I previously spent 15 years as an exec at J.D. Power and did a lot of this type of price tracking as part of that position. From my experience BaT is currently the best read on prices. Too many people go with asking prices on AutoTrader and such, but these aren't realistic. Also, Mecum and BJ aren't good because there are too many "games" going on that create unrealistic prices in some cases. Thus far the SVX has been stable. I don't really see its prices making much of a jump for about 5 years because they will lag behind the other Japanese leaders that have been making the jump already (Supra, MR2, etc.). These will drag up the rare SVX, especially as people realize what great cars they are.

And to the other poster, I too share your regret that it seems like you have to sort thru a hundred Porsches and BMW's to get to something interesting and different. It didn't used to be that way on BaT a couple years ago. But, the interesting stuff still comes up every day.