The largest American automaker held a similar auction in January, when it sold off almost 200 classic and exotic vehicles.  Most of the cars in the January auction were models from the 80s and 90s.

A recent story on NPR’s Marketplace interviewed Rick Carey, auctions editor of Car Collector and Victory Lane magazines.  Carey is adamant that the classic car market is holding steady, despite the current economic crisis.  He said that GM’s auction in January was a success.

“The collectors showed up with dollar bills falling out of their pockets to buy [the cars],” Carey says. “And they paid some very serious money for them.”

The current auction includes over 100 classic cars from GM’s private collection, and the fun begins today in Palm Beach, FL.  The carmaker is selling the cars to raise additional funds and to avoid the warehousing fees for the vehicles.

Finding exotic car storage can be a challenge.  While your minivan might have no problem with the conditions in your garage, exotic cars are a major investment and require specific storage conditions.  Exotic car storage must be climate-controlled, and the storage facility must also be secure.

With a collection the size of GM’s, the cost of storing of these classic vehicles can add up.  And since the classic car market seems to be one of the few areas in the economy that is holding steady, it’s a good time for GM to sell off parts of its collection.

Included in today’s auction are a 1920 Chevrolet Model T truck, a 1999 Camero Z/28 that was used in the film “Runaway Bride,” and a 1978 Corvette pace car from the Indy 500.  The Corvette pace car was one of only four vehicles ever produced.

While not all of us can afford to head to Florida and participate in this exciting auction, we can still drive a classic car.  For instance, it’s possible to rent a 1959 Mercedes 190SL right here in Dallas.  Exotic car rental is a great way to drive your dream car without the hassle and expense of ownership.

Rick Carey says that classic cars can be a solid investment in difficult economic times.  While new cars are notorious for depreciating as soon as they are driven off the lot, classic cars often only increase in value.

“The collector car market has been remarkably solid,” says Carey.

Kate Miller-Wilson is a professional freelance writer living in the Twin Cities. Visit her website or email her for information about her freelance writing services.

GM has decided to keep mum about some of the significant differences between a few of these cars and their production counterparts. As Jeremy Korzeniewski, writing for autoblog, noted in his post, some collectors have hired Mark McPhail the recently retired head of GM Performance Engineering as a consultant to advise them about the GM Heritage Cars.

Having superior information on a car up for bid certainly will give some bidders an edge in determining its true value.

I have to agree with one of the comments that followed the autoblog story. What sense does it make to keep quiet about what makes the GM Heritage cars significant?

Presumably, the point for GM should be to generate as much interest among serious car collectors in the cars up for auction.

Would it not, then, make sense to release very specific information about the place of the car in GM’s history and how they differ from the standard production model?

It might cost a retired GM executive a nice consulting gig, but car blogs would write about the cars, forums would discuss them, and collectors would be much more engaged and much more likely to bid.

As noted in a previous post about the Heritage Collection Cars being auctioned, I think it is quite sad that GM has to sell off cars from its Heritage Collection to stay in business, and it is even sadder that the Congress and our outgoing president think it a good idea to give the failed American auto companies billions of our tax dollars.

I hope that these cars will end up in car museums and in the hands of car collectors and car sharing club owners. Certainly, I’ll tune in to watch the Speed Network coverage of the Barrett Jackson auction.