Title Controversy Swirls Around GM Collection Cars

If you follow the collector car auction scene, you've by no doubt heard about the big broo-ha-ha surrounding title and paperwork issues that threatened to suspend the sale of as many of 80 cars out of the General Motors Collection. The whole thing came to a quick boil around 4:00 PM EST on Thursday. Bad information and poor reporting immediately followed. Fortunately, I had a front row seat as one of the broadcast commentators for SPEED TV. First, a little background, then what happened.

Contrary to popular rumor, General Motors has been selling off vehicles from it's events and shows collection for several years. These are NOT the 350 or so family jewels that make up the core of the company's Heritage Collection. I believe those to be safe from anything short of a complete liquidation of the company, which is not likely to happen by government mandate or otherwise. More accurately, the vehicles on offer here are cars, trucks, design studies, engineering mules, tuner toys, pace cars, old SEMA show cars, the first Olds Cutlass Ciera, the last built previous generation Saturn VUE, and such that have lived their purpose and are no longer needed.

It costs a lot of money to store and maintain all this hardware, and GM needs to simplify. About 250 such vehicles were sold at Barrett-Jackson's sale in January of 2009, and by any measure, the process was successful. Another 100 plus vehicles were consigned to the Palm Beach sale taking place currently; As I write this, two days are in the books, with the third and final day of the sale taking place today (Saturday).

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