FAMILY TIES: Barrett-Jackson is a Homecoming for Bart Haythorne
December 31, 2024
Posted by Barrett-Jackson
One of Haythorne’s favorite moments at Barrett-Jackson: being the clerk for the Batmobile sale.
Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the collector car auction industry was still in its relative infancy, with the big players of the day often working together, sharing both their passion and their knowledge. These included Tom Barrett and Russ Jackson, Russell Kruse and Rick Cole. Bart Haythorne remembers going with his parents to the very first Rick Cole Auction when he was still in college.
“My mom, dad and I would always go, wherever the auctions were,” Haythorne recalls. “They got to know us. One day my father called and asked Rick how to get into the auction business.” A couple of months later Cole asked the father/son team to come work for him as clerks. The rest, as they say, is history.
At the January 2025 Scottsdale event, Bart Haythorne will enter the arena for a remarkable 86th Barrett-Jackson auction, accumulated over 36 years by traveling to the company’s events across the country as part of the auctioneer team.
“Rick Cole basically hired me off the street in 1988 to work at his Newport Beach auction,” Haythorne relates. “That’s where I first met Steve Davis, Craig Jackson, Russ Jackson and Don Williams (of the Blackhawk Collection). They taught me the business.”
1979 PORSCHE 928 RISKY BUSINESS MOVIE CAR – SOLD $1,980,000
The Jacksons first hired Haythorne to work at the 1992 Scottsdale Auction. For the most part, his role on the auctioneer team has been as an “auction clerk.” That means when the hammer falls, he goes out onto the auction floor, writes down the amount bid on a ticket, gets the bidder’s signature and then comes up on the block to record the sale in the system.
Over the years, Haythorne’s responsibilities have expanded to include taking on the role of announcer during the automobilia auctions, and he also occasionally serves as a bidder assistant.
Haythorne’s favorite moments at Barrett-Jackson often involve celebrity cars. “I clerked the Bandit Trans Am in 2015,” he says. “And then there was the Batmobile, the Super Snake – I clerked that one twice – the ‘Ferris Bueller’ Ferrari, the ‘Risky Business’ Porsche and Clark Gable’s Mercedes-Benz. The last one was Sammy Hagar’s LaFerrari (at the 2024 Scottsdale Fall Auction). That was super-exciting.”
When he’s not at Barrett-Jackson, Haythorne tinkers with his own car collection and runs an eBay business from his home base in Texas, where he moved about three years ago. But his heart is always at Barrett-Jackson. “The auction is my family,” says Haythorne. “It’s become even more important to me, for personal reasons. After I moved, in 14 months’ time, my mom, my brother and my father all passed away. It’s great knowing that in January, I’ll be back in Scottsdale seeing everyone and then, 90 days after that, we’ll all be in Florida together again. I’m grateful to Craig and Steve for trusting me enough to put me in the position I’m in.”
Barrett-Jackson is extremely thankful to Bart Haythorne for his loyalty, hard work and dedication to The World’s Greatest Collector Car Auctions for so many years.
Written by Barbara Toombs