Brasher’s AA Celebrates 18 Years

Buyers and sellers converged on Brasher’s Portland Auto Auction May 26 to celebrate the auction’s 18th anniversary. The event was highlighted by brisk sales in the auction lane and enthusiastic bidding in the prize auction that concluded the day.
General manager Jerry Hinton reported dealers packed the lanes to bid on nearly 1,000 vehicles during the anniversary sale.
“We counted more than 650 dealers in the lanes and saw lots of hands in the air as they vied for vehicles from Honda and Acura Remarketing, Wells Fargo Dealer Services, US Bank, OnPoint Community Credit Union, Reliable Credit, Vancouver Toyota and Toyota of Tri Cities, in addition to a tremendous consignment from independent dealers in the region, Hinton highlighted.
“A great sale-day lineup, free lunch and multiple opportunities to win prizes resulted in a exciting day of auction action that ran straight through until the final prize drawing of the day,” he continued.
Hinton recapped that festivities began early in the morning with drawings for free breakfast, rewards points and free details. Lane promotions throughout the day gave customers the chance to win movie tickets, more rewards points and gas cards.
“After re-charging with a free lunch that included steak and strawberry shortcake, our customers kept the energy going right through to the end of the sale and had a great time at the prize auction,” Hinton shared.
Concluding the sale, dealers gathered to bid on more than $5,000 worth of electronics, toys, camping gear and more.
For the prize auction, they bid with the points they had accrued in the auction’s innovative Dealer Rewards Program, which was launched earlier this year
“Each dealership that wants to participate in the program is issued a Rewards Card,” Brasher’s Portland AA sales manager Rob Wassom explained.
“Following each sale event, points are posted to the dealer’s account for his buying and selling activity for that day,” Wassom continued. “While the points can be redeemed anytime for a variety of auction-related items, our customers had a great time using the points in the prize auction at our anniversary sale.”
Wassom also noted that the most popular item at the prize auction was a Razor Go-Cart, which the winning dealer “bought” with 140,000 points. Auction customers spent a total of 1,530,000 points at the prize auction.
“We had a great time with four mystery prizes as well,” Wassom mentioned.
“Our dealers were bidding ‘blind’ on four beautifully wrapped boxes, two of which contained Kindle e-readers which went for 50,000 and 16,000 points, and a Ken doll and a Yankee Candle with high bids of 40,000 and 13,000 points respectively.”
Officials recalled that the auction was launched by Larry Brasher back in 1993 in Lake Oswego, Ore., as Brasher’s Cascade Auto Auction.
Operating in a renovated truck facility with four lanes, the auction held its weekly dealer consignment sale in Lake Oswego until 1995, when it moved to a state-of-the-art facility in Wood Village, near Portland’s International Airport.
In January of last year, the auction’s name was changed to Brasher’s Portland Auto Auction to better connect the facility with its geographical location.
“Portland touts a mature market base, aggressive management and sales staff and the best reconditioning in the Northwest,” auction officials insisted.
“With Brasher’s state-of-the-art technology, market returns are maximized both in the lanes and on the Internet,” they continued.
Brasher’s Portland AA is a member of ServNet and also participates in Auction Pipeline.