The 2015 Black 52 MTI Pressure makes Diamonds just hammered for $500K with the 2 spare QC4V engines

Nicely bought - congrats to whomever

At that price I would assume the owner had someone there to pay that amount so that the boat did not sell that cheap. Just my thought from being at auctions that have items on no reserve and don't bring enough money.

Yeah I would agree with that. I just got home from spending the week there and all I can say is WOW.

If the owner bought it back he would have to pay Uncle Craig both sides commissions buyer and sellers. That is $90,000. Plus what it cost to transport and run across block. Puts it around 100k in costs to do a buy back. Either way no reserve is a gamble.

It's called a "shill bidder"......since it is a boat, BJ might have worked out something with the seller on the fees/strategy.

Auctions are ripe for shenanagans!

I watched some of the cars, didn't see a "steal" among them. I have no idea why a buyer would ever want to buy anything with a structure like that. Everyone is quick to complain about a car dealer or a dealer fee of a few hundred but to start bidding against the guy across the room to be the high bidder in a circus like environment then pay the auction fees is crazy!

90% of the cars are just used cars, the internet can locate duplicates anywhere in the country. The contractor that sold 15+ cars from the 78 Pace Car Vette to the 2018 McLaren (didn't meet reserve) was getting over retail money for nice exotic cars but certainly nothing rare. He sold a 458 Speciale Ferrari......there are a dozen of them on ebay right now from 265-429K (cheap one is repaired salvage). His sold for 400K....+10% = 440K....you can buy the same car from an authorized Ferrari dealer for less! Add transport costs (which I'm sure are a premium for this event) and then the hassle/costs of attending.

Sure the other 10% of the cars they offer are one off or rare but the majority is not.

I never watched it on TV and said to myself, man that was a great deal.

The people buying cars there do it for the experience, and don't care about a 15-20k price difference. A friend of mine has bought 8 or so cars at b-j and lost as much as 30k in a year. Still goes back and buys more. He went to Scottsdale hoping to get an h1 hummer.

Is there a story as to why it went to auction to begin with?

I like the Mecum auctions the best ( The deal maker ) Dana will lower the commission % to get the deal done.

I did see a convertible Silver Benz ,twin turbo I believe ,that sold for like 26K , new was low 100's. Car looked brand new.That was quite a few years back , ..