First off, thanks for the compliment Agentf1.
So these are my honest thoughts, and anyone here is obviously free to disagree with anything I say. The market for what a car is worth is whatever price the seller and buyer agree that it is worth in the end when a sale is consummated. By that definition, this is what the market price for that particular car was worth at that particular day in that location. Is part of it due to luck, or something else that may happen at Barrett Jackson auctions? Possibly, but someone still agreed on that being the fair price of the car regardless. Quite possibly luck is most to blame as the right few people were in the room at the right day/time, and perhaps they were not as educated of Viper buyers as we all seem to expect that they should or would be, and therefore the price was inflated over what they would have been able to possibly find for a comparable car elsewhere.
I can directly compare this to my line of work. I am a commercial real estate broker in Manhattan and negotiate deals for a living, and have represented over 3 million square feet of commercial office space in New York City in the past year, or just about 1% of all the commercial office space in the entire city. In that regard I have seen and done some deals that range from very expensive and what some might consider over market, and the same on the other end of the spectrum. When representing the Landlord or Seller, you always try to get top dollar, and in many of the cases where I was successful in doing an "above market deal" it was because I was smarter than or more knowledgable than the broker and their client on the other side, was able to make and present a very good case and argument for why the space was worth more, or there were situational factors involved which are too numerous to list here that I will simply describe those as luck. The same was true on the flip side when I represent office tenants looking to lease space or a Buyer where I was able to negotiate a really great "below market deal" for them. No lying or false information ever contributed to these deals happening, but simply rather a combination of intelligence, creativity, and pure dumb luck. I used similar tactics when buying my Gen IV Viper earlier in 2012 as I felt very lucky that I not only found the exact rare color combo that I wanted, but also the only one in the country like it for sale. In the end, through a very risky 4 month negotiating process where I would go silent for a week or two at a time, I ultimately ended up buying the car for almost $15k under the seller's original asking price. This was what most of you would probably consider a below market price at the time for this 1 of 9 Viper with probably the lowest mileage of any of them, but it was the market for that car at that time and place for whatever reasons that came into play there. if another buyer had appeared during that time offering more money, then that would have been the market price, but for now I feel that I really got a great deal and am holding onto it for fun and as an investment for down the road.
My advice to all of us Viper owners is this. Although we all probably agree that the sale of this ACR Viper seems to be above market since others like it can't seem to move at far lower prices, we should embrace it and realize that;
A. We should consider looking to Barrett Jackson to sell our Vipers in the future, or
B. If we are concerned about our resale value, we should hold onto out Vipers and keep them pristine as they will all likely be worth much more as the years get on, especially as more and more people unfortunately continue to wreck their Vipers and make them increasingly rare, or
C. Embrace this sale and hold our asking prices a bit higher and firmer across the board as we all are currently defining the market price for Vipers whenever we put one onto the market. Once people start dropping prices on their cars too fast or too much, it dilutes the market and cheapens the Viper brand and actually creates a cheaper market for the cars. Remember, the more Vipers that are on the market of a particular year, type, and color, the lower the prices will be due to more competition and the laws of supply and demand. There are currently not many high quality and low mileage Gen II GTS Vipers for sale, so those are really holding their value and are even going back up in value. There are a lot of RT10's and a lot of GEN III Vipers flooding the market so those are depreciating quicker. There is a very limited amount of Gen IV Vipers for sale, and in many cases there are even only one of or a couple of a particular color for sale in the whole country, so they should hold their value even better if that persists. Anyone wanting a Ford GT and is familiar with that market should know that those cars have only gone up in value since they hit the market, partially due to the low production numbers and high percentage of wrecked cars just like the Viper, but also because there are so few that are ever on the market at the same time. It is also arguably an even more exotic car than the Viper, even if by only a bit.
And as for all the conspiracy theories, I think that's all a bunch of BS. Nobody is out to screw us over or over inflate or dilute the brand. We do that to ourselves. It's all supply and demand, which also explains why the first Corvette sold for over $1 million at BJ, because there are a LOT more Corvette guys out there who are willing to pay big money to have one a very special Corvette that is sure to be worth a lot one day, be it sentimental or actual $ value. And that's my 2 sense............