Richmond Auctions-Tony Townley Collection

[tom406]

Amazing collection of cars and memorabilia being sold next month. Steve Magnante is doing some videos on YouTube under the McCandless Collection channel featuring many of the cars. Yenko SYC Camaro and Deuce, some real low mileage original musclecars, lots of memorabilia. The GM cutaway Camaro and Vette are both really neat pieces.

https://www.richmondauctions.com/auc...ey-collection/

[dykstra]

Dang! Very cool! Thanks for the heads up.

[Bill Pritchard]

What an incredible collection!

[cheveslakr]

Wasn't this the collector that had several '71 chargers, hemi equipped, in every color?

[tom406]

No, I believe you're thinking of the Tim Wellborn Musclecar museum. He's the king of '71 Hemi Chargers.

[jeffschevelle]

Wow. With the amount of effort and dedication (and $$) it takes to amass such a collection (not to mention those fantastic buildings in the pictures), I was curious why it was all being sold at one time. So I googled it. Google AI said:

"Tony Townley is selling his car collection due to his financial difficulties and the collapse of his business, the Zounds e-cigarette company. The extensive collection, which includes high-end vehicles like Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and classic American muscle cars, is being sold to settle outstanding debts and liabilities arising from the business's demise."

However, if you google Zounds e-cigarettes, there are no results, and the very same AI says there is no such company!!!

So it appears AI just completely made up a fictitious reason why the collection is being sold ??

So then I changed around a couple words in the search, and AI generated this:

"The sale of the Tony Townley car collection is for reasons of estate distribution and to benefit his family's charitable endeavors, as he passed away in 2024. The collection, which includes many highly coveted and rare vehicles, is being sold through RM Sotheby's with no reserve, meaning the cars will sell to the highest bidder regardless of price, and the proceeds will go to the Townley family's efforts to support education and other causes."

But if this is the Tony Townley that co-founded Zaxby's, then according the "regular" internet search results, he is still alive!!

Then I added "memorabilia" to the search, and AI generated this:

"The provided search snippets do not explain why the Tony Townley car and memorabilia collection is being sold, only that it is being auctioned by Richmond Auctions in collaboration with Morningstar. The articles discuss other types of car auctions and reasons for sales, but do not offer specific details regarding Townley's collection.
To find the reason for the sale, you would need to look for direct news or announcements from the auction house or Zaxby's."

It is well known that AI makes up non-existent case law and/or flip-flops the substance of quotes from legal cases if you ask it to generate an answer to a legal question, especially if your question is phrased in such a way as to let AI know that you hope that the answer leans one way or the other. But completely making up a non-existent company and its collapse, or making up a death, just to be able to give an answer to a googled question, is even more troubling if that is what just happened.

Paging John and Sarah Connor !! Save us from the machines!!

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With all that said, does anyone know why the collection is being sold?