The Birthplace of Simulcast in 1995: State Line Auto Auction in Waverly, New York

October 12, 1995, in addition to being Columbus Day, was, in retrospect, a very historic day in the annals of automobile auction technology. On the date, at State Line Auto Auction, in Waverly, NY, the first vehicles ever offered both live and electronically were processed at a General Motors closed auction.

400 vehicles were offered that day, and 400 were sold. 125 bidders attended the floor, and 15 bidders chose to stay at their respective dealerships and bid remotely. 45 cars were purchased electronically by these remote bidders. At the time, everyone at State Line realized that they were involved in a historical event, and looking back twenty years later, the story should be of interest to the auto auction industry.

The catalyst for this event took place at a ServNet meeting a few months prior, when Harry Beyer, ServNet’s Executive Director at the time, introduced Steve Campus to the ServNet group. Steve was the C.E.O. of the Campus Group, and he had developed technology that he felt applied to the auction industry. Steve had developed a device that allowed conference attendees to vote electronically with the capability of tabulating and recording these votes from many remote locations simultaneously.

Steve’s client at the time was a large pharmaceutical company that ascertained the need to have physicians use this technology in real-time so that different thoughts from groups of physicians at disparate medical conferences could let their opinions be known instantaneously. The Campus Group utilized satellite technology which was available at that time from the rooftops of convention hotels.

Steve’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to believe this technology could be utilized in the auto auction environment. After approaching a few OEM manufacturers, and even a couple of auto auction chains, to no avail, Steve learned of ServNet, and Beyer allowed him to present his technology to the group. Jeff Barber, State Line’s owner, volunteered to “give it a try”, if, of course, he could raise some interest.

State Line had procured a contract from General Motors as a GM Sponsored Auction in the fall of 1989, with the first auction conducted in March of 1990. In 1995, Mr. Ford Sims was the Director of Remarketing for GM, and after learning of the concept from Beyer and Barber, he gave his permission to go ahead.

A fortunate fact was the availability of satellite dishes at General Motors dealerships for the use of their respective parts departments. With most GM dealers already having a dish on their rooftop, State Line’s sales and marketing team set out on a mission to gain permission for remote bidding using the existing equipment.

Hence, a partnership was struck between Steve Campus and Jeff Barber to provide how General Motors could conduct a closed auction for their dealers allowing them to bid remotely at the same time the live auction was being conducted – which was unheard of in 1995.

There was this thing called “the internet”, but popular opinion from the parties involved deemed that the internet was “too slow” – it could never keep up with the fast bidding required. Therefore, the basic technology consisted of live video streaming by way of satellite, with the audio portion of the auction being transmitted through a “phone bridge” which was located in Kansas. Hence, no internet.

EDS (Ross Perot’s Company) was in charge of all satellite technology for GM. On sale day, October 12, 1995, it so happened that GM had to “buy back” the satellite time slot from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm from the Chrysler Corporation, to which it had previously been sold.

The satellite trucks set up in Waverly, NY that day had come from the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament which had been played recently in the borough of Queens, New York City. The team from the Campus Group literally transformed offices at State Line Auto Auction into an amazing broadcast center.

In July and August of 1995, State Line conducted a couple of “dry runs” to test the technology without having any actual real bidding. The first live event on October 12th was quite remarkable in that many bids were recorded and 45 cars were sold to remote bidders. The first actual vehicle ever sold to a remote bidder in conjunction with a live auction was car #8 that day, and it was sold to Farnsworth Chevrolet of Canandaigua, NY, to George Marble, their Used Car Manager. Farnsworth bought 8 cars remotely. Another dealership, Bob Johnson Chevrolet, bought 12. Of the fifteen dealers who signed on remotely, only two failed to buy at least one vehicle.

The interest in this “experiment” even reached its way to the GM boardroom, with rumors that a few members of the board of directors were observing the new technology in action. Although General Motors had plans to have a complete roll-out of this technology in the first quarter of 1996, the landscape changed abruptly when there was a personnel re-alignment within the remarketing department just weeks after the successful debut.

Both The Campus Group and State Line Auto Auction have gone on to succeed in their respective business arenas since that October day in 1995. History was made due to their innovation and expertise, and the auction industry has now totally embraced “Simulcast bidding.”

Originally published on October 12, 2015.