Three weeks ago, Richard Rawlings shocked gearheads and muscle car-lovers everywhere. In a YouTube video that’s been viewed nearly 1 million times, he stood up in front of his massive hot rod collection and announced: “I’m selling everything. All of it!”
Well, not all of it, he tells D. He’s selling most of it: 23 cars, two motorcycles, a chassis, and a tour of the Gas Monkey Garage.
Rawlings founded his well-known body shop and garage in 2002. His fame surged in 2012, thanks to his popular Discovery Channel show, Fast N’ Loud. Rawlings and his team would seek out and restore old and classic cars. It ran for 16 seasons, ending in 2020. Since then, he’s been posting builds for his 950,000-plus followers on YouTube.
Rawlings says the sale has been several years in the making. In the original YouTube post, he says he first approached online automotive auctioneer Bring a Trailer before the pandemic. But, Rawlings says, the pandemic made people much more comfortable with selling cars online. “Covid shocked the market,” he says. Lots of people are collecting right now, which means lots of cars are changing hands. “We just want to be on the forefront of some of these cars.”
So, he’s auctioning off his collection.