The fact that the car was once owned by a famous person is not a guarantee that the owner will sell it for a huge profit. The significantly higher value of the car depends on several factors. Not only on the story, but also on the value of the car itself. As it turned out on the recently auctioned Audi A8 owned by Karel Gott.
A black Audi A8 with a 4.2-liter V8 under the hood, 169,000 kilometers on the clock and manufactured in 1994. That doesn’t sound like an offer that crowds of eager buyers would be clamoring for in car dealerships.
But stories can turn ordinary cars into collector’s items. And this limo had it. In the technical license, the name Karel Gott is written instead of the first owner. And the next owner was a company run by Karel Janeček.
“I also supply the vehicle with registration plates AES 00-15, which are not intended for use, only for exhibition purposes. A photo with Mr. Gott is preserved with these license plates,” stated the seller with the nickname Traktorshop in the advertisement for the car published on Aukra, and next to the photos of the car he also added a photo from the Blesk newspaper, in which the singer is captured with a car.
215 people watched the auction, twenty of them bid. The auction ended on Friday, June 16. But the price didn’t shoot up as wildly as some might have expected. The black limousine ended up at 315,000 crowns.
“Twenty bidders was a relatively decent number, but I am also of the opinion that the auction was quite successful. We are now working on a new internal information system, which should ensure that we do not miss interesting ongoing auctions,” says Tomáš Skolek from the media department of the online auction portal Aukro .
It is true that there were no articles about the advertised car in the mainstream media in advance. At the same time, about half a year after Karel Gott’s death, it was impossible to escape the posts that excitedly commented on the ambitious advertisement for a completely ordinary Škoda Fabia 1.4 MPI from 2001, for which the seller wanted the astronomical sum of 800 thousand crowns precisely because it also had the first owner mentioned in the technical license the most famous Czech singer.
But while the final amount for which it was finally sold is clearly published at Audi, if there was really someone who paid 800,000 for the Fabia in 2020, it is difficult to find out today.
But it raises questions. Why is it that the Audi by the master with the nightingale’s voice, the darling of the Czech nation, was sold for relatively little? Is it because “Gott” is no longer an all-powerful spell that will shoot the price to the heights? Should such cars be sold in a different form than a regular online auction? And what depends on the fact that cars after famous personalities are (not) sold for high sums?
“Cars after famous people is a theme that works, but how much always depends on several factors. Aukro is an absolutely sufficient channel, although I think that physical auctions have a different atmosphere, bidding on the Internet does not make you emotionally ‘boil’ so like in the hall. Still, I’m not sure if the mentioned car would fare better at a regular auction,” says Radek Pokorný, a passionate collector of vintage cars and owner of Engine Prague, which deals with the sale, restoration and repair of classic and historic cars.
“The story is not everything, it also depends on the car. The Audi A8 is not rising on the market, its age does not yet indicate that it will soon be a veteran. It is not quite popular in Germany, because the large-volume petrol limousines of the nineties are not well insured, the consumption is also not low and there is no almost no piece with a small run-in,” describes the expert on classic cars.
He also thinks that most people associate the singer mainly with Mercedes, so the Audi A8 stands a bit in the shadows. “That’s exactly why I don’t think an ad for an Audi or a Fabia works so well. If his Mercedes-Benz 500 SE from the 1980s was for sale, I would really fight for it. Fortunately, I managed to buy a Mercedes-Benz SE from the director of the Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Košler, who bought it in the same year as Karel Gott,” says Radek Pokorný.
Gott is clearly a draw
Nevertheless, he is of the opinion that the name Karel Gott in the technical license is a bonus that can significantly increase the value of the car. “At celebrity car auctions, the price is usually ten to 30 percent higher. Not every famous person is a draw, but Karel Gott is undoubtedly one. It also depends on whether the famous person is famous in a positive way, like him, or in a negative way, such as Radovan Krejčíř and his unsuccessful sale of the family house or Ivan Jonák from Discoland,” notes the collector, who years ago opened an exhibition with several hundred veterans in the premises of the Prague outlet center near the airport.
The Czech market is also small. Thanks to the Internet, Czech owners of famous cars read about auctions for world-famous personalities, which are sold for millions of crowns, and begin to believe that they also have a treasure in their garage.
But cars after world-famous personalities have a greater potential globally. Whether it’s cars that are auctioned off for F1 pilots, sports champions or movie stars. “Cars after Paul Newman, Alain Delon or, for example, after Elvis Presley are sold in the world’s auction halls and, in short, everything usually works there. The origin of the car, the story, the promotion and the way it is sold,” comments Radek Pokorný.
The so-called “Czech pond” is therefore sometimes unpredictable, Radek Pokorný reminds us that stories do not always drag on. “Recently, for example, a Renault 16 by Radek Brzobohatý was for sale in pre-renovation, not exactly top condition, its price was quite normal, in no way exaggerated. When Leoš Mareš sells the car, it will certainly attract more attention. The new generation of Czech artists may be interesting, YouTubers or influencers,” adds the collector.
In the future, he also plans to organize prestigious high-value car auctions at the level of world-famous halls such as Sotheby’s or Artcurial, which no one regularly organizes in the Czech Republic.
2023-07-31 04:00:36
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