Barrett-Jackson’s 2017 Scottsdale Auction Will Feature an Extraordinary Docket of Rare Mopars

Barrett-Jackson’s 46th Annual Scottsdale Auction rolled a deep run of rare Mopars across the block in January 2017, and one lot in particular had the rest of the docket looking over its shoulder: a 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda listed as one of only fourteen built, carrying documented race history and national records. Here is what made that car, and the Mopar run around it, worth paying attention to.

Every big collector-car auction has a headline car, and usually you can spot it from the catalog photo alone. Sometimes it takes a little more digging. Buried in the docket for the 46th Annual Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Auction was a lot number that did not look like much on paper until you read the fine print underneath it, and then read it again to be sure you had it right. Lot #1392 was a 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda. That alone would have been enough to draw a crowd. What the listing added after that is the part that made seasoned Mopar people put down their coffee, and it had nothing to do with paint color.

The Car That Made the Rest of the Docket Nervous

The consignment described the car as one of only fourteen built, with significant documented race history and national records to its name. Those two claims do very different kinds of work. Rarity gets you attention. Race history gets you provenance, and provenance is what turns a very expensive car into an irreplaceable one. In a room where multiple 426 Hemi cars were crossing the block over nine days, being the one with a paper trail back to a sanctioned strip is what separates a headline from a footnote. It is also the kind of claim that invites scrutiny, which is exactly why the serious bidders were reading the documentation binder rather than admiring the shaker hood.

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Why Fourteen Is the Most Expensive Number in Mopar

Fourteen is a number that carries real weight in the Mopar world, because it is the count most often attached to the 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible, though export cars nudge that total higher depending on whose count you trust. The 426 Hemi was never a volume option in the E-body. Chrysler built the engine to homologate a race motor and then charged accordingly, and buyers in 1970 responded exactly the way you would expect when a single option box costs roughly a third of what the whole car costs. That is how you end up with a car that was mass-produced in body and hand-counted in specification. Every one of those fourteen is tracked, argued over, and appraised individually. There is no such thing as a quiet sale of one.

What 425 Horsepower Actually Cost in 1970

The engine itself explains the price of admission. The 426 Hemi arrived in the 1970 ‘Cuda rated at 425 horsepower gross with 490 lb-ft of torque, fed by a pair of Carter AFB four-barrels on the factory inline dual-quad intake, breathing through hemispherical combustion chambers that gave the motor its name and its appetite. Checking that box in 1970 added roughly $871 to the order sheet at a time when a base Barracuda stickered in the neighborhood of $2,800. Cars ordered that way also came with the structural reinforcement, heavy-duty suspension and, on four-speed cars, the famously overbuilt Dana 60 rear axle. Nobody bought a Hemi ‘Cuda by accident. You had to want it enough to pay for it twice.

Race History: The Detail That Separates Money From Real Money

Race history is the multiplier that most casual buyers underestimate. A restored car with a correct engine is a very good car. A car that was actually campaigned, that set records under a sanctioning body, that has period documentation tying the chassis to results, occupies a different category entirely, because it cannot be recreated by writing a check to a restoration shop. It is the difference between owning an example of the thing and owning the thing itself. That is why Barrett-Jackson led the description with rarity but did not stop there, and why the room treated Lot #1392 as the anchor of the Mopar run rather than just another high-dollar E-body.

WestWorld in January: Nine Days, One Very Long Weekend

The 46th Annual Scottsdale Auction ran January 14 through 22, 2017, at WestWorld of Scottsdale in Arizona, which is less a car auction and more a nine-day city that appears in the desert and then disappears. WestWorld gives Barrett-Jackson the room to stage thousands of vehicles under tent, run a continuous block, and let bidders walk the rows for days before the car they want comes up. The January date matters too. Scottsdale opens the collector-car calendar, which means the numbers set there tend to anchor expectations for the entire year that follows. A strong Mopar result in January is not just a strong Mopar result. It is a signal.

The Rest of the Mopar Run: E-Bodies, B-Bodies and Winged Cars

The Hemi ‘Cuda did not run alone. The Mopar presence across that docket covered the range that makes Chrysler’s performance era so collectible in the first place, from E-body Challengers and Barracudas through the B-body Road Runners and Super Bees to the winged aero cars that made Chrysler a household name at NASCAR speedways. Cars from that window are unusually well documented compared with much of the era, thanks to broadcast sheets and fender tags that let a knowledgeable buyer verify engine, transmission, axle and even paint code against the original build. That documentation culture is a large part of why Mopar values behave the way they do. Verifiability creates confidence, and confidence creates bidding.

Celebrity Metal and the Charity Block

Barrett-Jackson has also long paired the headline metal with a charity block, and the 2017 Scottsdale sale followed the pattern, with celebrity consignors including Steven Tyler and Kurt Russell putting cars up with proceeds going to charity. Star-owned cars are a reliably strange corner of the market, because the bidding is not really about the vehicle. Meanwhile the hardcore collectors ignore that ring entirely and wait for lots like #1392, where the value is all metal, numbers and paperwork, and where the bidding tells you something real about the market.

What Scottsdale 2017 Told Us About Where Mopar Values Were Heading

Looking back at that January in Scottsdale, the signal was fairly clear, and it has held up. The top of the Mopar market, meaning documented Hemi cars with verifiable history, kept separating itself from everything below it. Cars with correct engines, matching numbers and a paper trail continued climbing, while nice-looking cars with reproduction drivetrains and thin documentation flattened out or drifted. That gap has only widened in the years since. The practical lesson for anyone buying today is the same one Lot #1392 illustrated: the fender tag and the broadcast sheet are worth more than the paint. Rarity opens the bidding, but documented history is what finishes it, and a 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda with both is about as close to a blue-chip muscle car as the hobby gets.

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