Features The Hirohata Mercury price: Take a guess and win a prize!

Well, like all auctions.......my bid is a dollar 295!

 

I know that my father-in-law was approached by a couple people to help buy the car and I know they were ready to fork over some heavy money!
I'm going to say it goes for over $1M

 

775,000

 

So most of the people think Moriarity shouldn`t even get a bidders number (if he could)at 500 thousand. So their is a bit of love for customs on the HAMB.

 

$295,000.00

 

$379,000

 

$625,500.00
It's a respectable bid. That car belongs in the Petersen Museum, and not tucked away in some private collection never to be seen again! IMHO.

 

€ 450.000

 

Funny as it sounds, I never liked the '51 Merc rear window.
Just didn't seem a correct fit.

$334,000.50

 

1.68 Million

 

$1,250,000

 

1M

 

$416,500.00

 

$495,000.00

 

No idea. But I'm buying more lottery tickets than usual lately. Coincidence ? Maybe.

 

Here you go: $523,239.13 US

 

Any idea what Mecum paid for it?

 

$1.375.000

 

Mecum is just the auction house. They get their cut on both ends of the sale.

 

I just checked with my Ouija board and my Magic 8 Ball, they agree the price will be $849,655.13.

 

335.000

 

"Any idea what Mecum paid for it?"

As mentioned above they are just the auction house involved.

I believe it is still owned by Jim Mcneil's estate/ family. He died in 2018 and the family put it up for sale not long ago that I know of like the beginning of this year. Jim brought it off a car lot for $500 and Doug the owner before the car lot got it paid $200 for it.

I agree with K13 this will be a no sale at the auction. But once the family realizes the price they think it is worth doesn't meet the reserve and rethink it out, I think there will be a deal made shortly afterwards and it will get sold. Right now the family think it is the holy grail.

It might do a lot better at a different auction but not this one. Wouldn't surprise me if the Chrisman's Bonneville coupe brings more money than the H. Merc only because there will be more of that type of crowd there then custom people.

 

$101,500. But at that gues...it won't sell.

 

I'm going to guess $950,000. Using the Golden Sahara as a benchmark, the Hirohata is a more historically significant work and also needs no restoration, whereas the GS was a later, more polarizing style without the universal appeal, and also needed a complete restoration at significant cost.

 

Jay Leno for $840,000 in there interest of posterity.

 

When I wrote that, I was thinking of the Ron Pratte collection which was a private collection. But I will give you credit @Moriarity that you have indeed been generous about sharing your private collection via the HAMB, and when various HAMBERS have been in town, to invite them over!
Good on you for sure!

 

$1,951000.00 and you can drive it and it won't shred into strips...you can bet your Banksy on it!!...

 

It'll open at $100K and race up to a "reality" pretty quick. That reality is probably a hammer price of $625,000 which is $687,500 all in. That's realistic given it's history and past performance of such stuff with an added measure for inflation (check all results lately).

@Moriarity is right, customs seldom to never do well, but the caveat is Mercs. In the car world people only know "chopped merc" and tend to pay over market for anything that's a 49-50 Mercury custom. This one? It's "the one" and has had all the mystique, urban legend, clones and more around it it's whole life. How that plays might be way higher than I'm even giving it credit for but that shit sells. Still, it's not likely to be seen at the weekly cruise night wherever it ends up. Some mega collection or genuine enthusiast will get it and most exposure will be limited to the occasional concours and some specialty events paying tribute to the era and builders. That's my take, and even though I think I could be way wrong (too low) I can't help but stay with how customs generally suck at auction. And why Mecum? I have a lot of respect for their ability but a Barrett Jackson sale would get out-of-the-park silly. At the same time given the success with "Bullitt", The Kookie Car and Golden Sahara recently by Mecum, maybe...?