Attendance up for classic car auction

AUBURN, Ind. (AP) -- Organizers of a long-running classic car auction in northeastern Indiana pointed to improved attendance and sales as signs that they've put behind the financial troubles of its former owner.

Photos: Classic Car Auction

Big-ticket car sales from the Labor Day weekend event in Auburn include a 1935 Duesenberg Model J selling for $456,500 and a 1932 Auburn boattail speedster at $275,000, Auctions America by RM officials said.

The company said the auction drew nearly 50,000 people over the four-day event -- about double the attendance from two years ago soon after it took over the former Kruse Auction Park.

More than 1,000 automobiles and motorcycles were sold, along with 500 lots of memorabilia, for total sales of at least $18.6 million, Auctions America president Donnie Gould said.

"As time marches on, people are starting to forget about the problems this auction park had in the past," Gould told The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne. "It's becoming renewed. It's getting a new look and a new feel."

Ontario-based RM Auctions bought the Kruse auction in 2010 and pledged to continue the early September sales that have drawn thousands of people for nearly 40 years to the city about 20 miles north of Fort Wayne. The auction park's future had been threatened by former owner Dean Kruse's financial troubles that resulted in state officials suspending his auctioneer's license.

The weekend also saw the auction of an unused Kruse Foundation museum building for nearly $1 million that will go toward paying off a debt that threatened to close its National Military History Center.

Gould said RM Auctions planned to further improve the auction park and expand the classic car sale.

"We want to bring it back to where it was in its heyday, and I think we're heading in the right direction," he told The Star of Auburn.

Another large classic cars auction in conjunction with the annual Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club festival also had some big sales. Worldwide Auctioneers sold a 1934 Auburn 12 salon cabriolet for $473,000 and a 1931 Cadillac Series 370-A V-12 convertible coupe for $231,000, the company said.