Expert Auto Appraisals is owned and operated by Chip Davis in Jensen Beach, FL. I have over 30 years of professional experience in the marketplace of special interest automobiles and motorcycles.
As many of us, I am the son of a certified nut for anything with wheels or wings. My exposure to some of the cars I inspect today started at a very young age. My Father was mainly interested in British and Italian cars, various motorcycles, and WWII Aircraft. Every weekend of my childhood involved at least one of them. He owned a lot a great cars and motorcycles over the years. By the age of 19, I along with two friends, leased an auto dealership. We would buy various Camaro’s, Chevelle’s, 442’s, and GTO’s for resale. Back then, A completely original 1971 442 W-30 Coupe with a little rust in the quarters would bring around $1500! Gas was sky high, and anything with a big block was being traded to every car lot in town. I really don’t think we ever made a profit, nor do I think we cared. We had a lot of fun, played with some great cars, and had a shop to call home. I still use those experiences every day now. Back then, the cars weren’t restored yet. Everything was still original, and it allows me today to identify, what’s not.
In 1985 I took a position with an Automobile Agency in Western NY. I was a buyer / broker of collectible cars for a few select dealers, exporters, and collectors. I worked with retail clients and various dealers documenting and inspecting cars that they were already engaged in a transaction with. Back then, just getting photos of a car to a client quickly was a job. Using people like myself was quicker and more efficient of executing the transaction. The research, information, books, and just hard studying was more difficult to access then. You had to know the cars. The internet was not yet alive as we know it. One Hour photo developing and Fedex was about as quick as it could get. During this time, I had my hands on some of the greatest cars ever made. I was buying Abarth, AC, Austin Healey, Aston Martin, Allard, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Monteverdi, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, DeTomasso, Iso Grifo, Alfa Romeo, Lotus, Kurtis-Kraft, Cisitalia, Surtees, Shelby, and countless Corvettes and Muscle Cars. The most significant was a Ferrari Daytona Prototype which I now believe is in Switzerland.
Chip Davis 1989 Buffalo Evening News
1991-1992 took me to the Southwest United States and I found myself stumbling upon 20 to 25 year old muscle cars that had bad engines, rotted interiors, but were rock solid, and dirt cheap. I knew back home in Buffalo, NY, everyone was now having to deal with the rust from salt exposure years before. I decided buy enough cars to fill a transporter and ship it off to Buffalo. I ran an ad in the local paper for the week prior to the trucks arrival and instructed all of the buyers to meet for a viewing at Investment Motorsports on Saturday morning. When the first truckload arrived in Buffalo, I sold all the cars in about 5 minutes and had to call 911 to break up a fight between buyers. I realized I was on to something. I started buying these donor cars out West and sending them back East by the truckloads. By the time I cleaned out West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and a few Indian Reservations, about 500 of these donors where bought and sold. Some of these gave new life to well documented cars and many of these became well documented cars, but all of these became something different from what they were.
The next 18 years was spent in Florida, specializing in Porsche, and modern high end exotics such as Ferrari, Bentley, and Lamborghini. We had daily exposure to both the vehicle’s, marketplace, and the retail clients of Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and countless examples of Bentley, Mercedes, Rolls Royce, and BMW’s. During this time we still remained very active with vintage Muscle Cars, Sports Cars, and Classics.
This experience proved to be invaluable and is what ultimately defines the services I offer today. My entire career has been servicing clients in a very specialized aspect of the auto industry. I have designed my services to be best available, adaptive to my clients needs, and always executed with the highest level of professionalism.
In todays age, the market move’s much faster than in the past. Buy it Now Buttons allow us to make huge mistakes at incredible speed. Search engines allow us to find vehicles of various conditions with efficiency. However the distances are still there to deal with, and the job hasn’t changed. You still have to have the car inspected. We bring our years of experience, a strong and diverse skill-set, a large network of experts to refer to, and always provide our clients the top level service that a discriminating buyer has come to expect. With now over 25 years of professionally trading collectible, exotic, and special interest cars, I feel confident that our experience and resources can prove to be invaluable in assisting you in acquiring or selling a significant automobile. Contact me today!
