Three Cheers for Buyers Who Know What They’re Looking At
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck - it’s a duck, right? In the case of vintage cars with ultra-low miles, even more proof may be required. These types of classic cars are always subject to intense scrutiny because the ones that are deemed to be the real deal will usually sell at a premium above their average market price. It’s something of a holy grail in our hobby: The well-preserved car that’s miraculously survived through multiple decades and has never been messed with. It’s often claimed, but seldom found.
I see a lot of BS in advertisements for classic cars. 1955 XXXX with 30,000 original miles! Well, no, your car obviously has 130,000 miles, or even 230,000. Why? For starters, it’s been repainted, the upholstery is not original and the undercarriage’s a mess. True low-mile cars from the 1960’s and earlier are rare, and almost always come with a good story to back it up. As a seller, I’ve had a few over the years and I make it Job One to document and display what the tell-tale signs are. Seasoned collectors know the difference and will walk away at the first question mark that comes up.
On these rare occasions when I’ve been lucky enough to have one for sale, there’s sometimes been a little friction to overcome in the marketplace where I sell them: bringatrailer.com. BaT does most everything really well - their reputation for transparency has set them apart from the copycat sites, but at times they can veer into being overcautious in how they present the cars that have been consigned to their platform. If the auction writer is going to put something like “30K-Mile” in their listing title for a vintage car, that car better have every service receipt from new, showing mileage notations at regular, unbroken intervals to prove it. My 1941 Cadillac didn’t have many receipts, but it had everything else going for it: long-term ownership by a famous car-collector and a time-warp presentation that defied skepticism. Still, it wasn’t enough.
I bought the car from a dealer out of Las Vegas in 2022. It had been previously owned by Phillip Maloof, known to those in the car-collector community as “Uncle Phil”. His family had built their wealth by having the sole distribution rights for Coors beer in the Southwest US, as well as ownership of numerous sports teams. In 2001 they went on to build The Palms casino in Las Vegas, where Uncle Phil was an active member of the local Cadillac club chapter. Phil had an impressive car collection that included Duesenbergs, but his main focus was on 1941 Cadillacs. A 1941 Cadillac was the car that he had learned to drive in at age of 16, and at the time of his passing in 2020 his collection contained 30 of them in various body styles. The particular ’41 that I bought from the collection was a Series Sixty-One Coupe that had 10,063 original miles. I bought the car based on the photos that the dealer provided to me, and this was one of those times when the pictures really didn’t lie.
The car was a freak - exceptionally original everywhere you looked. One of the favorite parts of my job is photographing the cars that I sell, and this one had sooo many things to show: all original wiring, all original date-coded glass, perfect original upholstery and a spotless undercarriage. Past receipts from 1996 showed some minor paintwork done to the passenger side fender and quarter panel, but otherwise the rest of the paint was original and I had the paint meter readings to prove it.
The title notation at the time of Phil’s purchase in 1986 showed an odometer reading of 9,568 miles. Door jamb service stickers recorded 9,091 miles in 1971, and 8,783 miles in 1966. And no, that wasn’t 109,000 miles. None of the car’s brightwork had ever been refinished, all of its weatherstripping was original, and the fragile porcelain coating on the exhaust manifold was still perfect. This car was the real deal.
I completed my photo set and submitted the car to BaT with a reserve of $50K. It was quickly accepted but there was a problem: They weren’t going to be able to list “10K-Mile” in the title, as per my request. I went back and forth with them for a little bit and at one point even quoted that duck idiom, but it didn’t matter. BaT was not going to officially vouch for the car’s mileage, and that was just the way it was, take it or leave it.
I took it. I knew by now that BaT didn’t like to claim anything that can’t be backed up with airtight evidence, but still, really? To me, the airtight evidence was everywhere you looked on this car! Classic cars can always be restored, but originality is something that can’t easily be replicated. It bothered me. I had found the holy grail and it was met with a shrug. All I had left was the hope that my audience would agree with my assessment. Fortunately they did, and the response in the comments section was immediately positive: the peanut gallery on BaT knew what they were looking at. When they saw the photos from under the dash, or under the seat, or, or, anywhere - they were just as blown away as I had been.
Before long, I got a call from Steve Frisbie, a world-class street rod builder who happens to be based here in Portland. Steve’s company has built numerous award-winning custom cars, but also runs a metal business that stamps out exact reproductions of steel bodies for 1933 and 1934 Fords, as seen at www.realsteel.com. But above all, Steve absolutely loves original cars and was more than just a little interested in putting his eyes on this Cadillac. The next day he came to my shop and spent a good two hours looking over this car. The fit, the finish, the minutia, every little clue. For me, it was a satisfying validation as I watched him pore over the small details as an archeologist would. He told me that he would have liked to buy it right there, but understood that he’d have to make a play for it on BaT instead.
Going into the last day of the auction, the car was sitting at $30K, but as it usually goes on BaT the real bids came in at the end. Steve was in the action but had to exit around the $50K mark. When it was all over the car ended up selling for $55,500 to a buyer who already owned numerous Cadillac models over a wide range of years. As the saying goes; real cars get real bids, and this one went to a buyer who knew what they were looking at.
Great story and educational. Having watched your parade of classic car gems over the years i must say it seems to me you’ve had more than a couple stellar time capsules but you’re modest, not a bad thing. Thanks for the article and for entertaining me with your beauties for over a decade!
Beautiful car. Excellent photos.