[427TJ]

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Lewenthal is the type of guy that gives the hobby a black eye.

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At the auction level it is not a hobby anymore, it is business, pure and simple.

The televised specatcle of B-J and the hype-up of prices on our once-affordable musclecars has forced the "hobbyist" out of the equation, unless he wants to put the family in hock to play the auction/high-priced car game.

Auction buyers buy musclecars mainly as investments. I'm sure buyers enjoy the cars but they probably bought them with an eye for making money selling them later on. The "hobbyist" watches B-J on TV and/or attends the show just for the spectacle and the social aspect, as I did, but his musclecar is more of an emotional thing, a time machine that takes him back 20, 30, 40 years and he (or she) loves driving it and working on it on weekends. But, like it or not*, musclecars are fast becoming the playground of well-financed people, far above the level of mere "hobbyist."

(*Like it: sellers. Or not: buyers.)

As for Mr. Lewenthal, it appears to me that he helps hype the whole B-J spectacle and therefore he helps hype car prices upward, which is what any seller wants, right? (again, buyers don't but sellers do.) He may act somewhat distasefully in front of the cameras but that's sometimes what it looks like when light (TV lights in this case) is shed on such business deals. Sellers should be thankful that guys like him are becoming TV celebrities and thus bringing more attention and more bidders to the B-J spectacle. Who here would refuse Mr. Lewenthal if he won your car, especially after he had bid it up into the stratosphere? I'd sell a car to him in a New York minute, just give me the money sonny. Sounds distasteful but that's just business.