GreenBkk Auto | The Importance of the Milton Robson Car Collection Auction

The Importance of the Milton Robson Car Collection Auction

By ROB SASS

Credit: The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com)

It’s estimated that this 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge Ram Air IV Convertible will sell for $1 million (on the high end) at the RM Auctions sale on Saturday.

With the economy showing some signs of a pulse, blue-chip prewar classic cars and European sports cars have shown some renewed vitality in the market. At the Monterey auctions last August, $172 million worth of collector cars exchanged hands. “In the upper end of the market there is a great deal of liquidity,” Robert Ames, a commercial real estate investor and car collector in Portland, Ore., said at the time.

Now it’s the muscle car market’s turn under the microscope. The Milton Robson Collection of 54 cars, assembled over 25 years, crosses the auction block through RM Auctions on Saturday in Gainsville, Ga.

Mr. Robson once owned a food service company, which took him all over the South in the 1960s through the 1980s. Over that time, Mr. Robson, now 68, accumulated some of the rarest and best muscle cars, including a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Yenko S/C Sport Coupe, estimated to be sold for $300,000-$400,000, and a 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge Ram Air IV Convertible, which has a high estimate of $1 million.

A 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Yenko S/C Sport Coupe from the Milton Robson Collection. There’s only 26,000 miles on the odometer.

Mr. Robson was attracted to a combination of the highest horsepower engines available and always the scarcer convertible body style. RM Auctions has had tremendous success with single collection sales of high quality cars, and bidding for rare GTOs, Camaros and Chevelles is expected to be active, although it is doubtful that prices will approach 2007-8 levels. In any event, conclusions about what it all means to the muscle-car market as a whole will be impossible to escape.

Credit: The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com)