Who was there in 1989-1990?

Meanwhile at the Pebble Beach Concours, a majority of the field is made up of prewar cars, and those prewar cars garner almost all the awards. Something's gotta give.

Best of show - 1929
Runners up - 1932, 1957
Most elegant - 1932, 1937, 1929, 1955
Special awards - 1906, 1933, 1931, 1904, 1909, 1940, 1932, 1916, 1929, 1933, 1929, 1929, 1936, 1907, 1915, 1931, 1947, 1949, 1953, 1956, 1967

 

Good observation. You should also contrast the RM auction results with those from Gooding and Bonhams. RM killed it, they aggressively sold cars at good numbers; Gooding and Bonhams did a so-so job IMO.

I was active in 1989 when the crash hit. My personal red flags were when a friend was offered $50,000 by the dealer for his delivery position on a new TR(and he refused it); a local dealer bought a nearly new 328 GTS at the Mannheim auction for $30,000 over MSRP(the model was still in production). By January of 1990(BJ Arizona, then a relevant auction) it was pretty clear that it was game over. The only buyers were in Japan and that lasted for a year or so.

I had one car that I purchased in mid-1987 and held on to it until 1994, I still more than doubled my money. Started buying cars again in the mid-1990's but the market was essentially flat for 5 or 6 years.

The market has definitely shifted. Classic Enzo era Ferrari have peaked and are still softening, cars from the 1980's, 90's and 2000's have assumed leadership.

My 2 cents.