Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale week has a way of setting the tone for where muscle car money is headed each year, and 2017 was no exception. With 1,719 vehicles crossing the block and 40 sales records falling, the results revealed which corners of the market were heating up — and which classics were starting to share the spotlight with unexpected competition. A Shelby GT350 and a Boss 429 both cracked six figures, but the real headline was who else was cashing in.
So what actually sold that week, and what did it say about where the muscle car market was headed? The numbers that came out of WestWorld told a more interesting story than most people expected, because the cars pulling the biggest money weren’t the muscle cars everyone assumes dominate a Scottsdale sale. If you walked in expecting a Hemi ‘Cuda or a Boss 429 to top the leaderboard, the final results might surprise you, and the reason why says a lot about where serious collector money was really flowing that January.
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The Big Numbers Didn’t Come From Detroit
The 2017 Scottsdale sale put 1,719 vehicles across the block and set 40 sale records along the way, with roughly $102.5 million changing hands over the week. But the top two results weren’t muscle cars at all — a 1964 Aston Martin DB5 brought $1,485,000, and a 1960 Chevrolet CERV I research vehicle sold for $1,320,000. It’s a reminder that even at America’s biggest muscle car auction, European and one-off engineering cars can still steal the headline.
Muscle Cars Still Held Their Ground
That said, Detroit iron didn’t leave empty-handed. A 1965 Shelby GT350 Fastback brought $445,500, and a 1969 Mustang Boss 429 out of the Reggie Jackson Collection reportedly sold for around $385,000 — both firmly six-figure results. Rare Mopars, including Hemi ‘Cudas and Dodge Superbirds, were among the week’s most talked-about offerings, and Dodge muscle along with ’80s domestic performance cars were called out as particularly strong segments. That last part matters: it was an early signal that serious money was starting to move beyond the usual big-block giants and into cars the hobby hadn’t fully priced yet.
A Preview of Where the Market Was Headed
Looking back, that’s exactly where the market kept heading in the years since. Scottsdale 2017 wasn’t just a big auction week — it was a preview of a muscle car market that was starting to widen its definition of what’s worth collecting.
Barrett-Jackson Isn’t the Only Game in Scottsdale That Week
While Barrett-Jackson draws the television cameras, Scottsdale’s auction week actually spans roughly half a dozen competing sales running in the same days, including Russo and Steele, Bonhams, RM Sotheby’s, and Gooding & Company, each courting a slightly different slice of the collector market. That concentration of auction houses in one city, in one week, is part of what makes Scottsdale such a useful barometer for the broader collector car market, sellers effectively get several competing marketplaces testing the same buyer pool simultaneously.
European Iron Topping a Muscle Car Sale Isn’t New
European exotics and one-off engineering cars outselling American muscle at a nominally muscle-car-heavy event isn’t unusual, high-end European sports cars and coach-built classics routinely draw the deepest-pocketed international bidders, a different buyer pool than the largely domestic collectors chasing Mopars and Boss Mustangs. That split explains why a Scottsdale sale can set records at the very top while still functioning as a genuine muscle car marketplace throughout the rest of the docket.
What a Six-Figure Boss 429 Signals
A Mustang Boss 429 clearing six figures isn’t just about the car, it reflects provenance. Cars tied to a well-known prior owner, in this case reportedly the Reggie Jackson Collection, routinely command premiums over otherwise identical examples with less documented history, since buyers are paying for a verified chain of ownership as much as the mechanical specification underneath.
80s Performance Cars Entering the Conversation
The report calling out ’80s domestic performance cars as a strong segment reflected a broader shift already underway across the collector hobby by 2017: buyers who came of age watching Fox-body Mustangs, third-generation Camaros, and turbocharged Buick Regals in period were starting to have the disposable income to chase those cars seriously, pulling attention, and prices, away from an increasingly saturated 1960s muscle car market.
Why No-Reserve Sales Change the Math
Auction structure matters as much as the cars themselves at an event like Scottsdale. No-reserve consignments, where a seller commits to letting the car go regardless of the final bid, tend to attract more aggressive bidding than reserve sales, since buyers know they aren’t wasting time chasing a lot the seller might pull at the last minute. That dynamic is part of why record counts tend to cluster at big no-reserve auction weeks like Scottsdale rather than being spread evenly across smaller sales throughout the year.
A Snapshot, Not the Whole Story
One auction week, however large, is always a snapshot rather than the full market. Private sales, dealer transactions, and online marketplaces move far more collector cars by volume than any single auction week, meaning Scottsdale’s headline numbers say more about what wealthy bidders were chasing in a single January than about where average muscle car values were actually headed across the broader hobby.
Why January in Scottsdale Sets the Tone for the Year
Because Scottsdale’s auction week falls so early in the calendar year, results from that single week often get treated by the collector car press as an informal preview of where the broader market is headed for the next twelve months, even though a handful of January sales in one Arizona city can’t fully represent a market that includes thousands of private transactions happening simultaneously across the rest of the country.
What Didn’t Sell Matters Too
No-sale results, cars that failed to meet reserve and went home unsold, tell auction analysts almost as much as the headline hammer prices do. A string of no-sales clustered in a particular category can signal that seller expectations have drifted ahead of what buyers are actually willing to pay that week, information that rarely makes headlines but matters just as much to anyone tracking where a segment is genuinely trending. Serious bidders and dealers alike often pay closer attention to those quiet no-sale lots than to the headline results everyone else is talking about, treating them as a more honest gauge of where real demand actually sits, rather than a distraction from the week’s marquee sales.
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W30, those red inner fender covers!!
Fuck them and all the millionaires buying these cars at ridiculous prices and leaving nothing for the middle man..old men buying all the stock I f muscle cars up driving the prices up..I say fuck you to all of you spoiled brats who need a muscle car to get pussy!..because without your 69 camaro you,d be jerking off the rest of your pathetic life!!!