The market of classic cars is experiencing that kind of post-pandemic euphoria that has led a wave of people to make something dreamed of and always postponed. A trip, a work of art and, why not, that car whose design or history has fascinated you since time immemorial.
This fever is not only explained by the end of the covid crisis and the Carpe Diem widespread, but also due to the unstoppable growth of the Online sales’. What started as a necessity during the sanitary restrictions has become a business that puts vehicles within the reach of more people and at any time.
Despite the fact that all face-to-face events in the sector have returned, telematic sales have intensified exponentially.
More than 100 million dollars
They feel “the car lovers that they have to realize their dream before it is too late”, explains Matthieu Lamoure, general director of the French auction house Artcurial Motorcars, In his analysis published in the Classic Car Auction Yearbook, the bible of the classics sector that for 27 years has collected and analyzed the auction data on both sides of the Atlantic, the only public numbers that allow you to take the pulse of this particular market.
“The 2021-22 season was positive in every way: more cars on offer, higher prices and, above all, many more sales,” he explains. Adolfo Orsi, Reference book publisher. Grandson and son of the owners of Maserati between 1937 and 1969, Orsi is passionate about the classics who always defends that it is better buy them for pleasure and not as an investment, even when historically good acquisitions end up revaluing.
A record from last season that will be hard to beat was the classic car auction for more than 100 million dollars. It was also the first time that a car made it into the top 10 most expensive pieces of art ever sold. It was about the Mercedes Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe from 1955 and lowered the hammer for a whopping 142.6 million.
The model, the second of the only two adaptations of the legendary 300 SLR racing car to the coupe format, was in the possession of the german manufacturer And it had never been for sale. The case, although exceptional, reinforces the mantra that an exclusive car, in perfect condition and with pedigree, In addition to generating emotions, it is a great acquisition.
The sale of the Uhlenhaut Coupé pulverized the previous maximum reached in 2018 by a Ferrari 250 GTO which was auctioned for 48.4 million and the supremacy of this brand at the top of the most expensive. In the list of the 10 most valued in auctions there are two Mercedes Benz and an Aston Martin, the rest are Ferrari models.
All are Vehicles manufactured between 1954 and 1964. And it is that the cars produced between the end of the Second World War and the mid-sixties are still among those that arouse the most passion and for which collectors are willing to pay the most.
‘Instant’ Classics
More recently, other segments such as the so-called classics have grown strongly. instantaneous (Ferrari LaFerrari or the Ford Shelby GT350 and GT500, for example) or the sports poster of the nineties (the Ferrari of series like Magnum or Corruption in Miami).
An example of this last market was the sale by $1.98 million of one of the three Porsche 928 driven by Tom Cruise on the set of the 1983 film RiskyBusiness. The figure is the highest achieved by a 928 at auction.
But the fetishism does not end there: last August it was auctioned for almost $855,000 a 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo that belonged to Lady Di and is believed to be the only Series 1 painted in black, a deference the manufacturer paid to the late Princess of Wales.
The truth is that, after the pandemicPart of excess liquidity Derived from the economic slowdown, it has ended up on the collecting market. In the case of cars, a determining factor was the popularity that the digital platforms they won in such a short time.
online auctions
sales on-line were launched en masse as a result of the restrictions of the health crisis, but while the first telematic auctions were rather shut down and hastily carried out by the big auction houses, the websites that followed became authentic classic shopping channels, expanding both the models on offer and the profile of buyers.
The authors of the Classic Car Auction Yearbook Two platforms from both sides of the Atlantic stand out for their great performance. One is the Californian Bring A Trailer (BaT) and the other is british Collecting Cars. Both offer hundreds of models every day, from affordable cars to millionaires with dozens of photos and even videos where you can see the state of the vehicle in full gear.
BaT also encourages comments and questions to sellers, gives access to a detailed history of the model and can even calculate the cost of shipping the purchase. Commissions are relatively low and overhead is low, paving the way for more potential collectors.
Traditional classic auction houses such as RM Sotheby’s, Bonhams or Gooding & Company They also maintain a strong commitment to Internet sales. The latter even made a hybrid proposal last season under the name of Geared Online Scottsdale Edition, offering an exclusive exhibition of the lots that were offered at the Scottsdale fair and the Arizona Auto Week.
Almost 90% of the cars offered for a value that touched the seven million dollars. The classics market “continues to grow and attract new enthusiasts from more and more places on the planet. Only in the last edition of the renowned Monterey Auction, we had bids from 38 different countries, of which 17% had never participated in an operation with RM Sotheby’s”, explains the global director of the auction house, Gord Duff.
upward forecasts
The expectations are rosy. Analysis firm Statista forecasts that the world classic car market grow from 30.9 billion dollars in 2020 to about 43.4 billion in 2024.
However, as Kenneth Ahn, president of Hagerty Marketplace, a benchmark classification firm in the sector, cars vintage, Like all category assets, they are subject to the fluctuations of these values, therefore, periods of high revaluations tend to undergo strong readjustments.
Since it is not known when this will happen or if it will be gradual or abrupt, it is best to follow the Orsi advice: Don’t buy a classic for business, do it for pleasure. Now, thanks to the web, the car of your dreams can be within your reach.