Barrett-Jackson Set to Auction off Four NFTs of Rare VIN 001 Cars

Arizona-based automotive auction house Barrett-Jackson will auction off four rare car non-fungible tokens (NFTs) celebrating the sales of VIN 001 cars for charity.

American collector car auction company Barrett-Jackson is breaking into the NFT game with a new auction of digital collectibles. The collection up for auction consists of four NFTs for cars Barrett-Jackson sold at a charity auction in March.

All the cars were 001 VIN numbers, meaning they are the very first production model of each car ever made. In the car collecting community that adds significant value and desirability to a car.

The cars to be given the NFT treatment are the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach 1, 2021 Ram 1500 TRX Launch Editions, 2021 Ford Bronco two-door, and the new 2022 GMC Hummer EV Edition 1. The cars sold upwards of $500,000 with the Hummer EV, a reboot of the famous 4×4, sold for an astounding $2.5 million. The sale netted nearly $8 million for charitable causes.

Nick Cardinale, executive vice president, and general manager at Barrett-Jackson told Autoweek that “the future of NFT’s within the automotive collectors’ market is very bright, there is a lot of potential here. The marketplace for memorabilia as well as the cars themselves is already huge.”

Barrett-Jackson is working with fintech company and digital payments provider CurrencyWorks on the NFT auction. CurrencyWorks will provide use of their collectibles NFT platform and NFT payment system.

Details of the auction

The NFT auctions, it should be noted, do not include the vehicles themselves. Instead, the digital rights to the sales are being sold by Barrett-Jackson. According to the auction company, winning bidders will receive the digital packaging of an exclusive video, an artistic rendering, and a trio of still images.

“It’s a digital piece of automobilia of sorts commemorating the sale of the spectacular VIN 001 vehicles,” their website states.

Barrett-Jackson will also give winning bidders automated usage tracking and license management. That does not give the ability to license the NFT for public use. It is meant to protect the collectible from being copied and distributed by a third party. Cardinale adds that the IP rights of the footage or content are not included.

Cameron Chell, the founder of CurrencyWorks, believes that the cars could fetch a few thousand dollars but, that this is just the beginning of automotive NFT collectibles. Chell believes a day could come where all sales of rare or significant automobiles will have NFT’s attached to them.

Not everyone is so optimistic, however. Sam Abuelsamid, an analyst at Guidehouse Insights, is far from sold on the idea of NFTs as valuable investments. “NFTs are the latest incarnation of the greater fool theory,” Abuelsamid believes. He continues to question why anyone would buy anything with no tangible value and that cannot be replicated.

The auction is scheduled to end on June 19 when the hammer comes down on the final sale and winners will be announced.