[VIDEO] John Clay Wolfe Details a $4 Million Car Deal That Nearly Went Off Without a Hitch

John Clay Wolfe of GivemetheVIN.com fame says he shelled out $4 million on a gigantic collection of classic cars, “the best stuff I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Was it a mistake?

Go behind the scenes into the collector car world in this new video posted by John on his YouTube channel, and you’ll see the big-dollar guys can sometimes get into financial issues, too.

John explains he bought the collection through a friend, Shelby “Ford GT Guru” Smith, flying out to see the cars and ultimately agreeing to pay $4 million to Shelby, who then worked up his own deal with the collector.

Once he had the cars, John received advice from everyone that he should just unload the cars through traditional means like Barrett-Jackson, Mecum, Bring a Trailer, etc., etc.

But John doesn’t work that way. “How about we just sell ‘em at Manheim Dallas like everything else?”

“You’re crazy, John!” he hears.

But John explains that he’s in the wholesale car business, noting that some will sell high, some will sell low, but at the end of the day, he will be through and “I’m either up, down or broke even – I know I’m done, and that’s how I like to do business.”

With the help of fellow media car stars Richard Rollins of Gas Monkey fame and Dennis Collins of Coffee Walk, John began promoting the collection on their shows and through his own rapidly built website and wound up selling virtually all of the cars.

But then came an unexpected problem. John gets subpoenaed by a federal judge, who points out that the original car collector allegedly owes hundreds of millions of dollars to various people and the court wants the cars or where the money is.

John says the court receiver told him he was in the clear and had done nothing wrong – just happened to step in a pile of it trying to sell the collection.

By the way, the few cars that didn’t sell at Manheim are being offered through Bring a Trailer, including an immaculately restored 1953 Corvette with VIN 005 and the orange George Jones Possum pickup truck.

John and Richard will be hosting a live stream Saturday afternoon as the BaT auctions come to a close. How much do you think what’s believed to be the third Corvette ever available to the public is worth? John thinks it should bring at least $651,000 wholesale but claims it’s really worth $900,000 today and a million bucks a year from now.

Regardless of the legal issues, John says it was “extremely entertaining” to be involved with the car collection, noting: “I loved enjoying these cars and learning more about fuelies and learning more about 53 vs. 54 vs. 55. I didn’t know that stuff. I learned it quickly, but I didn’t really know what was going on in that first-generation Corvette world. I still think that the black ’57 with silver coves and red guts might be the prettiest car that day, and that 427 flue with white stripe and big horsepower … that was a pretty good one, too, with the sidepipes.”

His favorite of the day, though, was the 1967 Oldsmobile 442 that he let get away. Check the video to see what happened.

Source:
John Clay Wolfe / YouTube

Related:
[VIDEO] Richard Rawlings Visits a 20-Car Warehouse Full of Corvettes
[VIDEO] Huge Barn Find Reveals Over 20 Classics Including Several Corvettes
[VIDEO] Dennis Collins Heads to California to Buy a 1963 Split Window Coupe

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