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From Vettes To Shark-Nose Ferraris, Muscle Rules Russo & Steele Sale

If the annual Pebble Beach, Calif., auctions are the foggy highlight of summer for enthusiasts and collectors, then their balmy winter counterparts unfold each January in Scottsdale, Ariz. We’re taking a look at some of the four-wheeled stars on offer in the cactus-filled desert. Here’s what Russo and Steele will bring to the party:

For Russo and Steele’s Drew Alcazar, the Scottsdale auctions represent a giant gala being thrown in his backyard. Headquartered as he is in the Arizona vacation mecca, Alcazar’s general headache factor is but a fraction of what it is when he and his team are tasked with hauling their cars to a range of U.S. destinations. But that’s not to say he can take it easy.

To begin with, the competition for both sellers and buyers is intense since the biggest names in the auto auction world make sure they’ve got a presence in the area at some point during the month. Crosstown muscle car-focused rival Barrett-Jackson always puts on a huge event under the tents of WestWorld (Jan 20-28), while Bonhams (Jan. 28) and RM Sotheby’s (Jan. 28-29) will be swooping in with their European metal. And then there’s the simple matter of making sure that, as glam as the various events can be, the focus stays squarely on the buying and selling.

“What you don’t want to happen is for an auction to turn into a car show,” Alcazar says with a laugh. “You need to sell.”

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To that end, he counsels all consignors to go with “appropriate and realistic reserves. It’s not a cheap date to come here, between the hotels, the dinners, the wine. So the last thing you want (as a seller) is to go home with your car.”

While Russo and Steele’s largely but not entirely domestic muscle car line-up hasn’t yet been totally determined, there are already a number of lookers that will be on the block. Alcazar is confident that despite a cooling of collector car prices in the past year, “the top 1%, whether it be European or American cars, are still very desirable.”