I was interested to see the result of the sale of a 390 Sunroof G at Mecum Yesterday. A no sale at $30k. I don’t mean to disparage the owner but the car was not well represented on line. Mecum sells a bunch of their cars to on-line bidders and with only 4 pictures, it was a very poor representation. Watching this sale also made me wonder about possible a color change. I wonder if the Fawn Beige color did anything to not attract more buyers. I’ve been waiting for a while to see what a big block G would do at auction. This was not a positive result in my opinion. Your opinion may vary!!
I think the color will have an impact on value. It’s seldom seen and there’s probably a reason for that. The G is such a sporty car and most buyers are probably in the market for for a sporty color to go along with it. It looks nice but what’s up with the standard headlight door emblem and the G emblem mounted inboard?
Zoli, I totally agree with the lack of representation for the auction. There should always be pictures of the exterior, engine compartment, under side, interior and a Marti Report.
This could be a really good car. Burden is on the seller to provide information pre-auction, to get as many bidders as possible interested.
Several years ago at Barrett-Jackson, the year that Joe V. sold his Competition Blue Cobra Jet Eliminator. There was a second Competition Blue Cobra Jet Eliminator being sold. Pre-auction information and pictures, showed an incomplete, and under detailed interior and engine compartment. The weekend of the auction that car was very complete looking and detailed. I couldn’t believe it was the same car. It was well bought in the $50k range.
Joe’s car was the star of that auction. The second Eliminator lacked prospective bidders, mainly due to it’s lack of preliminary up to date auction day information.
It’s the same car in the Hot Rod article below. It doesn’t show well in the Mecum pictures, but it doesn’t look like it’s in the best condition. The passenger quarter panel is dented immediately behind the door and it doesn’t sit right in the Hot Rod pictures. It doesn’t look like it’s sitting ‘square’ (right side a little high and more so in the front?). If you look close to the first Mecum pic it looks like the dent is still there, but its hard to tell.
I’ve watched many episodes of Mecum and a few Cougars have passed across the block as I’ve watched. I think the announcers really don’t know much about the Mercury Cougar. When a GT-E crossed the block a year or two ago they basically downgraded the car and wanted to know from each other if the “funny looking hood scoop” was factory. They did not mention the 427 or how rare the and expensive GT-E package was on a Cougar in 1968.
So I guess in the end as stated above the seller must make sure the potential buyers and auctioneers know everything about the car.
Steven
I guess, IMO, given the condition and its an X-code, I would say it did very well at $30k. We saw a couple other X-code Gs this summer in not much worse condition in the $20k range.
$30k is strong money for that car, doubt it would have done better on ebay with a quality write up. Rookie move to not upgrade a few minor items missing or wrong like inexpensive 1/4 trim.
The car is an older restoration. It looks better in photos than in person. It needs a lot of little things from front to rear. If it were a pristine example it would have done much better.
IMHO, that is an unfortunate color. The stickers on the windows, & trumpeting a basically non existant Shelby connection further degrade the offering. Combine that with some of the more learned comments on this thread and $30K seems like reasonable $$$ for the car.
Well it does at least have Shelby part numbers here and there and CS really did not have much to do with the building of the 68-70’s so from that perspective the G has a connection.
To me the G stands on it’s own as a cool, special, limited run model that has an interesting history in terms of being finished at AO Smith like the '68 Shelby Mustang, having some shared part #s with those cars, etc.
Calling it a Shelby Cougar seems hucksterish, but I get why some people do that.
As a G owner and Shelby enthusiast, I always cringe a bit when people call them “Shelby Cougars”.
I agree with Chris, XR7-G Cougars stand on their own and were not badged or serial numbered as Shelbys.
They do orbit in the Shelby universe tho - The XR7-G project was handled by Shelby Automotive and something to keep in mind is that model lead times are a couple of years so G planning was started at Shelby American when they were still at LAX.
