"The Hangover" Mercedes Among 61 Movie Cars on the Auction Block
19 May 2010
The racecars never spun victory bournouts at Indy. The Shelby Cobras never menaced Ferraris at Le Mans. And the only hauling the El Camino did most likely involved a Barcalounger and a municipal dump. Still, the vehicles being auctioned at the Mecum Original Spring Classic are charged with a spirit that some collectors will find irresistible: the mystique of show biz.
From May 19-23 at the India State Fairgrounds,....
....the Illinois-based Mecum Auction Company will offer 61 cars from the collection of Cinema Vehicle Services, a North Hollywood, Calif., consultancy and design shop that has supplied movie franchises like "Austrian Powers" and the "Terminator" with machines to drive and, often, to destroy.
Standouts on the block include four tube-chassis racers from Columbia Pictures' 2000 adaption of the TV show "Charlie's Angels", complete with Chevrolet ZZ4 350 cubic-inch crate engines and zero street legality. Expected to fetch high bids are a pair of Mercedes-Benz convertibles - the aesthetically similar 1965 220SE and 1969 280SE - featured in last year's "The Hangover".
Sam Murtaugh, a Mecum spokesman, said that there were actually four prepared to match for the film but Cinema Vehicle Services had these two, which are known as the "beauties" - the ones that didn't do stunts and get crunched.
For 2008's "Iron Man", two Shelby Cobra body shells were delivered by Kirkham, a top replica builder, and both are available at the auction. One, however is badly damaged, having doubled as the superhero's mattress during a flight-suit experiment gone awry. Meanwhile, a 1973 Chevrolet El Camino that appeared on the recently canceled NBC comedy "My name is Earl" reads like a restoration cautionary tale, having a 1977 El Camino's door and a 1987 Camaro's transmission.
When these vehicles came to the dais, purists will protect their eyes with their lot catalogs. Who, then, are the patrons of Hollywood's castoffs, and how much do they want to pay?
"When it's a vehicle that was attached to TV or movies, it sometimes comes down to how badly just two people in the whole room want it," Mr. Murtaugh says. "It takes a very particular kind of collector."
A bidder's passion for pop culture, however, can result in a sound investment. Mr. Murtaugh recalls a sale from last October of a 1969 AMC AMX, which was built for a short lived 1970s detective series, Banacek. It was customized by George Barris, the tinkerer responsible for the "Batman" television series' Batmobiles. The special-edition AMC sold for $90,000.