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The collector car auction marketplace returned to something resembling normality at Amelia Island, with RM-Sotheby’s and Bonhams returning to live audience auctions and both delivering promising results.

Just RM-Sotheby’s and Bonhams held auctions with live audiences at Amelia Island this year; Gooding & Co sat it out.

Comparing last year’s stats for those two live auctions with this year’s showed some appreciable and quite positive differences—such as 2021 grossing $61.3 million, up from the $57.2 million in 2020—but so much has changed in the total marketplace that we’re not sure attempting to compare this year’s Amelia Island auctions with 2020 offers any tangible insights.

Needless to say, there will always be a marketplace for in-person auctions, but the world is a large place, and the inevitability of the online auctioning of all goods has been dramatically catalyzed by the pandemic.

The success of online collectible car auction site BringaTrailer over the last 12 months since the last Amelia Island is probably the greatest single influence in the changes taking place in the marketplace.

Instead of roughly 25% of the value of a sale going to the auction house, transacting the entire process online significantly reduces the frictional losses. The maximum a seller pays, including professional photos, is $350, and if you win an auction on BringaTrailer, you pay the hammer price plus a 5% buyer’s premium capped at $5,000.

Those changes to the “normal” process are massive. If your car hammers for $1 million at a traditional auction, you’ll get $875,000 and the purchaser will pay $1.125 million. On BringaTrailer, the same scenario will see you getting $999,501 and buyer would pay $1.005 million. That represents an economic imperative whose time has come.

Whereas buyer’s fees are a relatively recent addition to the auction process, auction houses will be very reluctant to reframe their fees and that’s what happens when a disruptive technology comes along and disintermediates the major players of the previous era.

Massive change is afoot, and as we have known for a century and a half, the species that survives is the one able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.

This 1929 Duesenberg Model J Murphy Torpedo Convertible Coupe sold for $5�725 million at RM-Sotheby’s Amelia Island Auction on May 22� Credit: RM-Sotheby’s The Collision Industry Foundation (CIF) is delighted to announce Axalta Coating Systems has joined the CIF Annual Donor Program at the URGENT CARE level with a $5,000 pledge.

The Annual Donor Program was designed to bring needed, recurring resources to CIF, so it can deliver on its mission to Answer the Call when those in the industry have been impacted by unforeseen catastrophic events. CIF depends solely on the generosity of donations to conduct its work.

The CIF Annual Donor Program offers five levels of annual funding options; each comes with a suite of benefits to the donor throughout the calendar year. All donations to CIF are tax deductible.

To become a CIF annual donor, visit www.collisionindustryfoundation.org or reach out via email to collisionindustryfoundation@gmail.com.

Source: CIF

Tesla Lawsuit Filed Over Death of Naibel Benavides Leon

by David A. Wood, CarComplaints�com

A Tesla Model S crash in Florida has caused a lawsuit which alleges 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon was killed because the Model S Autopilot system failed.

On April 25, 2019, George McGee was operating the 2019 Tesla Model S on CR-905A in Key Largo, FL, allegedly with Autopilot engaged.

The lawsuit says McGee was relying on Autopilot “to detect obstacles in the roadway ahead of the Vehicle and reduce speed and/ or come to a complete stop when such obstacles were detected.”

The lawsuit, filed by Neima Benavides, alleges the Tesla driver was looking at his phone and failed to notice an approaching intersection.

Parked on the other side of the T-intersection was a Chevrolet Tahoe owned by Dawn Angulo and driven by her son, Dillon Angulo. Naibel Benavides Leon and Dillon Angulo were standing next to the Tahoe when the Tesla Model S continued through the intersection and hit the Tahoe at nearly 70 mph.

The crash caused the Tahoe to rotate, hit and kill Naibel Benavides Leon, allegedly throwing her 75 feet into a wooded area.

According to the wrongful death lawsuit, the Tesla Model S failed to detect the Chevy Tahoe even though it was parked directly in front of theTesla. The plaintiff says the Model S was defective and unsafe due to design defects, and the automaker allegedly knew a driver would use the car in the way McGee did.

The crash and death allegedly exposed fatal defects in the way Autopilot was designed, “specifically regarding the method in which the system monitors driver engagement.”

The Tesla Model S crash lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida: Neima Benavides, Representative of the Estate of Naibel Benavides Leon, deceased, vs. Tesla, Inc. a/k/a Tesla Florida, Inc.

The plaintiff is represented by Poses & Poses, P.A.

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