As we told you last week, the guys over at Ridetech had a crazy end to their January. Not only were they recognized as “Manufacturer of the Week” by the Manufacturer Extension Partnership, they also headed to the Kissimmee, Florida Mecum Auction with their 138 Code ‘67 Chevelle SS build.
Unfortunately, their crazy couple weeks didn’t stop there. As we found out from the Ridetech crew, the Mecum Auction, where the Chevelle was expected to meet its auction reserve without issue, didn’t go as planned and ended up causing a bit of stress for the gang and costing them a couple extra tanks of gas.
Ridetech’s 454cui V8-powered Chevelle crossed the auction block on Thursday January 26th about 8:30p.m as was expected. What wasn’t expected, however, was that the bidding on the car stalled at $47,000. Unfortunately, that bid didn’t hit the reserve on the car set by Ridetech’s president, Bret Voelkel, so the car was not sold.
Even though the car didn’t sell while on the auction block, it still had a chance to sell in the days following, that was if someone made a good enough case to get a lower price or actually offered Ridetech the reserve.
Although Voelkel was confident this would happen, come 2p.m. on Saturday the 28th, no one had given Ridetech an offer they couldn’t resist. So they packed up the Chevelle in its trailer and sent it home.
While Voelkel and his family were having dinner that evening, the broker for the Ridetech Chevelle auction, Frank Serafine from Prodigy Customs, called and told Voelkel that someone had finally made an offer on the Chevelle for its reserve price. This is what Ridetech was waiting for, except a few days later than expected.
Although the Chevelle was already in Georgia, on its way back home at the time, Voelkel had it turned around and headed back to Florida for its new owner within minutes. The Chevelle arrived safe and sound in Kissimmee around 2 a.m. on Sunday. Come Sunday evening, Voelkel was issued a check for the $50,000 reserve price, some four hours after he had arrived home from his Mecum Auction adventure.
In the end, the Chevelle was sold for the minimum that Ridetech wanted to get out of it. Although the crew had to endure a crazy weekend, we’re glad that the car finally got sold. Hopefully now the crew can relax a bit before another crazy week hits.