Bidders hunt for value at New York auto auction

Bob Kelly arrives at the Brooklyn Navy Yard around 8:30 a.m. every other Wednesday with a carefully planned strategy. He almost never comes alone. He usually brings along a couple of workers from his construction business. Kelly is one of the professionals at a New York City-sponsored auto auction held twice a month in a large lot off the East River.

Not much about the auctions surprises Kelly anymore. A Brooklyn native, he has been coming for more than two decades. He knows the ins and outs of almost any vehicle. He has bought dozens and dozens of cars. One of his favorite purchases was a bulldozer that doubled as a snowplow.

“Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug,” Kelly said. “Sometimes you walk away with a gem, and sometimes you got a piece of junk, a bomb.”

Cities sometimes use public auctions to unload seized or surplus vehicles. But in a place like New York, where the closest most people come to driving is hailing a taxicab, the auto auctions give car lovers and experts the opportunity to engage in a bidding process that combines sport, art form and serious business. The average person has the chance to live out the fantasy of becoming a mini car dealer by repairing and selling the cars themselves.

On a Wednesday in early April, Kelly was looking to buy a van for his nephew who has seven kids with an eighth on the way. And, if he happened to find a car to fix up, he might just get that, too. Then there might even be a truck that catches his eye. As the owner of a construction company, Kelly uses vans or small trucks to carry materials.

The day before the auction, Kelly gets the list of vehicles online from a Web site, getting ready for the next day when the bidding starts at 9:00 a.m. A white GMC truck moves slowly from car to car, and a person gets out to test if the engine works on each vehicle. The auctioneer follows behind inside the cab of a small Ford truck. He starts the bidding on the small cars and by midmorning, gets to the serious trucks. In the fashion of a typical auctioneer, he will call out, “Lot number six, a 2000 sedan, can I get a $500? Six in the back? Can I get a seven? Once, twice, sold for $600.”

After the cars are sold, several hundred people, mostly men, are left. They are a diverse group. There are buyers from Canada and the Caribbean and from Pennsylvania and Staten Island. The uniform of choice is blue jeans, maybe a hat or boots. But there are also plenty of button-down shirts and suits. Most range in age from their early 20s to late 60s.

About 80 to 200 vehicles are sold at each auction, said Mark Daly, the communications director at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. From July of 2004 to March of 2005, the city made $3.5 million from vehicle sales.

Jason Norwood, 31, a chef, comes to the auctions with his brother when the restaurant business is slow. They live and work in Ridge, Long Island, and buy the cars and resell them. Fixing cars is second nature to him. Norwood has been doing it since he was young.

In a hushed tone, Norwood explained one of the tricks of the trade. Many cars are resold on eBay. And the final bid is “never the last word,” he said. Norwood and many of the other bidders come with a team of people, described by Norwood as “the eyes and ears,” who are there to scope out the automobiles and the competition.

Norwood and his brother once bought an ambulance with bloody gloves, used condoms, underwear and other assorted articles of clothing inside. The cars with the most left-behind items were often used for police stakeouts, he explained. Sometimes money and cell phones are found under the seats.

The regulars like to tell the stories of the man who bought the car with no engine. Or the time New York Gov. George Pataki’s black Suburban was auctioned. And then there are the snowstorms and rainstorms that leave bidders huddled inside dump trucks and other large vehicles for protection.

In Jose Diaz’s case, the auctions are a family affair. For the past three years, Diaz, 22, has been going to the auctions with his father. His brother works in a auto dealership and his grandfather fixes cars. A lifelong resident of Corona, Queens, Diaz now attends APEX Technical School in Manhattan. One day, he hopes to become a car dealer himself.

For Diaz, the process is one of simple mathematics. He bids almost exclusively on Acuras, Hondas and Toyotas. He avoids auctions on Saturdays--too many people can double or triple the price of a car. Diaz usually spends about $500, sometimes more. It takes him one to two weeks of work and $500 to get a car in salable condition. He can usually get about $4,000 for a car, and he sells them on Craigslist.

And then there is always the new arrival to the auction circuit. For Steve Georgilis, president and chief executive of the Alon Taximeter Corp. in Astoria, Queens, this was only his second auction. In business for more than 25 years, he sells taximeters, auto lights and bumpers. That day, he was looking to bid on several box trucks.

“The auctioneer has a special way of putting rain on everybody’s parade,” Georgilis said. “There is really no strategy. The strategy is to get the luck of the draw.”

E-mail: lj2019@columbia.edu