Mega show and auction.

The annual mega car show and auction, run by Barrett-Jackson, is running this week in Scottsdale. It’s a couple of years since I attended and as it’s just a mile down the road there really is no excuse for missing it.

Two things to note this year. Attendance appears to have quadrupled (I rode my scooter to avoid a parking lot trek) and prices have gone through the roof. That said, my hot dog was only $395 and they threw in a Diet Coke for a scant $49.95 extra. The pickles were free. I expect the B-Js will charge for oxygen next year, provided a recession does not wipe them out. That would certainly substitute for crowd control.

My attention was captured by two attributes – the strange and the magnificent.

Yesteryear’s ice cream man.

Oval Office ride.

Cruella DeVil’s wheels.

All leather interior.

Big, Beefy Buick.

Cobra, Cobra, Cobra. Carroll Shelby was onto something when
he stuffed a 427 c.u. Ford motor into a lightweight AC chassis.

BMW Isetta, 1957. 300cc, front access, just don’t let anyone park directly in front of you.

Francisco Scaramanga’s ride. 150hp Lycoming engine, 12,000 foot service ceiling.

Luxe interior of the $100,000 Airstream trailer. A film set favorite.

Boss Hogg.

Pirate surfer babe.

Packard. No expense spared.

Sale prep.

Devil’s Packard.

Surfin’ USA.

Gorgeous VW camper van.

Sunbeam Tiger. Ford V8 under the hood and a tiger in the tank.

1951 GMC 3100 Custom Panel Van.

Ford knew how to say “solid”.

Packard opted for “elegant”.

1941 Packard straight eight convertible. Perfection.

Forgotten generation.

Coker had a large classic tyre display.

Snake oil will always be with us.

Waiting for his ride.

All snaps on the iPhone 11 Pro.

I took 141 images and 140 were perfectly exposed. The other saw the flash go off for some reason and was awful. Not sure how it got turned on but, frankly, with Night Mode, the flash on the iPhone can be dispensed with.

A couple of things I noted.

There was not one DSLR or serious looking camera to be seen and there were thousands of people in attendance. In what is a photo-rich setting, cell phones dominated.

Second, popping in and out of the tents, some very poorly lit, Night Mode would kick in seamlessly when required and the results were perfectly exposed and color corrected, regardless of the light source. I have never published so many images with so little post-processing. Absent a crop or two here and there, and a couple where I touched the Clarity slider in LR, these are all straight out of the camera. All three rear-facing lenses were used in about equal measure.

Battery life is a non-issue with the iPhone 11 Pro (and even less so with the larger ‘Plus’ model). I was down to 74% from 100% after three hours of keeping the camera turned on (meaning it was showing everything on the display), during which time I also emailed many images to friends. Anyone opting for an external battery for an iPhone 11 is likely wasting money or has special needs.