Mohegan — A smattering of rare vehicles occupied parking spaces Tuesday on the first floor of Mohegan Sun’s Winter Garage.

A 1934 Plymouth Coupe here. A ’36 Studebaker Dictator there.

Outside, tents erected in the Winter Lot sheltered hundreds more.

The rest are due Wednesday.

Mohegan Sun and Barrett-Jackson, the collector car auction company, were in the final stages of preparations for Barrett-Jackson’s inaugural Northeast auction — a huge three-day event that begins at 8 a.m. Thursday.

By then, some 580 cars are expected to be in place, ready to proceed from a staging area near the Winter Lot to the auction block at Mohegan Sun Arena, which only Sunday had hosted the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA.

Immediately after the Sun beat the San Antonio Stars, workers began dismantling the basketball court to make way for the auction.

“The arena part of it is just one small piece,” Jeff Hamilton, Mohegan Sun’s assistant general manager, said. “As soon as the BBQ Fest ended (June 12), we started getting ready. Once the Sun game was over, we got started on the arena.”

The auction entails a lot more than the auction, Hamilton said.

“When you see it on TV, that’s all it is, but it’s so much more,” he said. “All the sponsors have exhibits, there’s virtual racing and you can get inside a lot of the newer models. There’s lots to do.”

He called it “The Big E of cars,” likening it to the Eastern States Exposition.

In addition to erecting an 80,000-square-foot tent and two smaller tents, Mohegan Sun workers built a new road from the Winter Lot to the arena loading dock, a route the cars will travel in full view of spectators.

“They do drive them. Every one,” Hamilton said.

Craig Jackson, chairman and chief executive officer of the Barrett-Jackson Auction Co., confirmed that.

“It’s a very popular spot,” Jackson said of the staging area where the cars are prepped.

Barrett-Jackson, which has a full-time staff of 62, relied on Mohegan Sun manpower and more subcontractors than it usually hires to prepare the auction site.

They faced a time crunch because of the basketball team’s schedule.

“Normally, we would have been two days into building it (by Sunday),” Jackson said.

The company, founded by Jackson’s father, Russ, and Tom Jackson, has been holding auctions since 1971 in Scottsdale, Ariz., Las Vegas and Palm Beach, Fla.

And now, Uncasville.

Jackson said the company’s deal with Mohegan Sun is for five years.

“Hopefully, longer than that,” he said. “I hope we don’t outgrow it. I don’t know where else we’d go.”

Ticket sales have cleared the 30,000 mark and total attendance for the three days is expected to exceed twice that number.

Still, that wouldn’t rival the 350,000 people Barrett-Jackson draws in Scottsdale, where its auction utilizes a 250,000-square-foot permanent building and a 750,000-square-foot tent.

“We draw bidders and consigners from all 50 states and 15 foreign countries,” Jackson said. “People travel across the country just to come as spectators.”

He said 1,100 bidders have signed up for the Mohegan Sun auction, a number that likely will climb by Thursday.

It’s safe to say that they'll ante up tens of millions of dollars by the time the last car is sold.

“I don’t like to put a number on it,” Jackson said. “I don’t want to jinx myself.”

At Barrett-Jackson's April event in Palm Beach, 466 cars were sold for $23.2 million.

The top seller, a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429, went for $550,000.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com