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The Collector Car Market Is Immune from Covid19

While the new car market is suffering its worst period in the post-war era, certain areas of the collector car market are on fire. We have been carefully following recent auctions results, and the outcomes are stunning. Over the last few weeks, modern classics have realized impressive prices. Beyond the high-profile public sales, our insider sources tell us that some very high-dollar vintage race cars and pre-war classics have also changed hands in the private markets over the last few weeks. The collector car market seems to have immunity from Covid19. (Image courtesy of medical economics.com)

Over the last few weeks, two particular auction results caught our eye and are representative of many other recent results we have followed. The first is an investment-grade 1986 Porsche 928S that sold at RM’s online-only Palm Beach auction. This car had color on its side and appeared to be a legitimate sub-6,000 mile immaculate specimen. The other vehicle we noticed was a 2009 SL65 Black Series Mercedes-Benz that sold on Bring a Trailer for $185,000. The 928 was an authentic investment-grade piece while the SL65 had over 10,000 miles—a lot for this rare and desirable vehicle. With three prior owners, this ultra-low production SL65 Black Series has had two too many previous owners. This fact, combined with high mileage, did not stop a spirited auction with a robust outcome during a global pandemic. Either way, both of these outcomes were stunning, given the staggering number of unemployment claims in this depression-like market.

Two recent auction results that caught our eye: The RM 1986 Porsche 928S and the BaT 2009 SL65 Black Series: 

This pristine 1986 928 sold for a whopping $88,000 at the RM Palm Beach auction that was held online only.

This well used SL65 Black Series sold for $185,000 on Bring a Trailer two weeks ago.

In a very unusual move, this week Bring a Trailer publicly posted the following stats about their web traffic:

Total # of bids: 16,265 (+35%)
Value of lots sold: $13,571,969 (+35%)
New users: 7,573 (+49% )
Average auction views: 14,552 (+4%)
Average auction watchers: 785 (+24%)

Clearly, BaT’s audience is exploding. Not only is their audience watching auctions, but they are bidding too! We are seeing similar trends here at Turtle Garage as our subscriber base has grown dramatically over the last six weeks. Our overall reader statistics are trending very solidly north. Quite simply, under “shelter in place” we all simply have a lot more time to burn. Perhaps the simple reason for the resilient market and strong growth of BaT and TG is that collector cars simply evoke positive feelings of happiness and these cars bring us together. Most car collectors derive as much happiness from camaraderie as they do from the cars themselves.

The following article from Bloomberg is a well-written summary of the current trends within the collector car market. Longtime friends of Turtle Garage David Gooding and Steve Serio are featured prominently in the article below.

REPRINTED FROM BLOOMBERG:

While Used Cars Pile Up in Lots, the Classics Are Busy Changing Hands

The market for vintage and collectable automobiles remains strong during this period of social lockdown, creating some unusual opportunities. Just don’t expect bargain basement prices.

A 1988 Porsche 959 Sport Coupe. 
A 1988 Porsche 959 Sport Coupe.Photographer: Mike MaezAs coronavirus cases surpass two million worldwide, the car industry has experienced an upheaval radical enough to permanently alter the trajectory of modern transportation as we know it.

Auto prices across the board have fallen 10% in recent weeks, according to Manheim, which is owned by Cox Automotive. Used-car sales in March fell 64%. Manufacturers have postponed important debuts and switched factory production lines over to making medical equipment: In Detroit, General Motors is making ventilators instead of Escalades; in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Lamborghini is hand-stitching facial masks instead of Huracans.

Meanwhile, McLaren and others have preemptively pulled out of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the site of the year’s most important luxury car debuts. (Event organizers have yet to officially cancel the annual concours.)

Inside The Pebble Beach Concours d\'Elegance Classic Car Show And Auction
An attendee places a bid for a 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona vehicle during the Gooding & Co. auction at the 2016 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in Pebble Beach, Calif.
Photographer: David Paul Morris

Classic car collecting has seen its share of upheaval, too: Aside from Pebble Beach, every prestigious car event has been cancelled or pushed, including the annual and epic Goodwood Festivals, the Greenwich Concours, and Gooding & Co.’s “Passion of a Lifetime” auction, which had been expected to cull the most money for a single lot of cars in history. Barrett-Jackson’s big Florida auctions will now be held on Oct. 15-17; Mecum’s mass Indianapolis sales have been rescheduled for June.

But while Covid-19 wreaks havoc elsewhere, quiet winners are emerging in the classic car market. In the new world order of cars, auction houses, brokers, and enthusiasts are stepping forward, often comfortably so.

“Great cars many times change hands quietly between serious collectors, and rarely do these folks panic or liquidate collectibles that will make them happy when doomsday passes,” says Steve Serio, who specializes in finding and procuring expensive classics for high-net-worth clients. “A handful of big cars have changed hands over the last few weeks, very quietly. A few were inspected prior to lockdown, and the triggers have been pulled. These buyers and sellers remain serious.”

relates to While Used Cars Pile Up in Lots, the Classics Are Busy Changing Hands
A scene from the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in Pebble Beach, Calif. in 2016.
Source: Gooding & Co.

Pent-Up Demand

David Gooding can attest to that.

The Gooding & Co. founder and president says he has closed multiple private sales of several extremely high-dollar cars that he hadn’t expected to sell at all. The auction house has done more and better private sales in the last few weeks than it would have during any typical springtime, including one private transaction that would amount to a world-record price for that type of prewar vehicle. The sale happened privately, it’s presumed, since no public auctions were happening anyway.

“There are some great cars that are available now that wouldn’t otherwise be—and the prices we have gotten for some them are actually robust,” says Gooding, speaking by phone from his home in Santa Monica, Calif. “There is a lot of pent-up demand.”

He noted that shifting priorities among collectors—some downsizing from cars that don’t matter as much as they used to, while others are purchasing cars that, they realize, matter to them more than ever—has created a dynamic, even exciting new playing field eagerly being navigated by discerning collectors.

“It’s not quite as simple as people are desperate or need money. But sometimes, people may decide: ‘I want to sell something now because I see a different opportunity, even in the stock market or real estate,’” Gooding says.

“For those of us who love cars, who truly love cars, this has really created a yearning for all of us to go back to our roots. We are looking forward to having the spare time and freedom to go out and drive and hang with our car buddies. It’s something we are really looking forward to doing, and for a lot of us, a car is a big part of that.”

Call it the YOLO approach: You might as well buy that thing you’ve always wanted. After all, you only live once.

relates to While Used Cars Pile Up in Lots, the Classics Are Busy Changing Hands
A Lancia Delta S4 Stradale. The plucky Italian cars were used for the infamous Group B racing series that dominated European rally racing in the 1980s. The best examples of the rarest racing versions sell for $500,000 and up.
Photographer: Ronen Topelberg

It certainly applied to a Lancia Delta S4 that belonged—until this week—to British artist friend of mine.  He hadn’t intended to sell such an expensive, rare Italian car during this volatile time. But when someone inquired through Instagram and made a rather decadent offer—the buyer had wanted to own a Lancia for years and figured it might be now or never—Mr. Brit, who is press shy and on lockdown in New York’s Hamptons, accepted. He had already set his eye on owning something else that he had put off; the Lancia sale gives him the cash to do so.

Inside The Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance Classic Car Show And Auction
Auctioneer Charles Ross, (right) gestures as David Gooding, president and chief executive officer of Gooding and Co., listens during the bidding for a 1975 Ferrari NV 312T race vehicle in Gooding & Co.’s auction at last year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance..
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Auctions Online

More publicly, automotive auction houses are finding new lives online. Bonhams took in a tidy £575,000 ($720,509) on a 1958 Lister-Maserati sports-racing car during a “sealed-bid” auction it held online earlier this month. RM Sotheby’s managed $13.7 million in sales and a 69% sell-through rate at an auction it held online on March 20-28, sums that roughly equaled RM’s typical sell-through rates at live auctions. That sale, which had originally been scheduled to occur in Palm Beach, Fla., drew nearly 900 registered bidders—23% more than the average number of registered bidders at live RM Sotheby’s Florida auctions over the last four years, according to the auction house.

Bring a Trailer, the website that sells vintage cars online in weekly auctions, has followed suit. After a brief drop in sales during the second week of March, the online car seller has seen web traffic and sales surge.

“Yesterday was our largest traffic day ever, and four out of our five best days ever for traffic have been in the past week,” says founder Randy Nonnenberg, speaking via phone on April 8. BAT has seen normal sell-through rates of roughly 70% through the spring. For the first week of April, sales were 95% of what they were the first week of March. On the day we spoke, a 1976 Porsche 930 Turbo Carrera in Sahara Beige sold for $110,000. “This is not, ‘Oh my goodness, the classic car marker is going to stop and the bottom is falling out.’”

relates to While Used Cars Pile Up in Lots, the Classics Are Busy Changing Hands
This 1970 Porsche 914 went for almost $1 million earlier this year in Scottsdale, Ariz. It was one of only 16 customer cars of the model made that year.
Photographer: Brian Henniker, courtesy of Gooding & Company

Screaming Deals (Not)

It’s also telling that the auctions set for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance are proceeding (cautiously) as planned, as are those of Bonham’s Monaco sale set for May. They will likely exist in online form, even if the live events are cancelled, which won’t present that radical a change; auction houses have never relied on live bidders, anyway. International callers, buying agents, and secret deals with private customers have characterized even the most elite auction sales since their inception.

“So many of the bigger cars we sell to people who aren’t even there—through agents who are inspecting the car for them—so I don’t think [online sales] will have a big effect on the auctions,” Gooding says.

Just don’t expect to get blue-light-special deals on that coveted Ferrari Daytona, say those who closely watch the field. Classic car sales had already been cooling after a half-decade of gangbuster sales totals and record-breaking hammer prices. The feedback loop that created a precipitous, unsustainable pace from 2015 to 2018 got back to a healthier rate last year. Speculators were already winnowed out of the car market when prices dropped in favor of true enthusiasts. On the buying side, these stalwarts will always have lists of what they want to own next and on the selling side, they won’t sell a prized possession for beans just because a few car shows have been scuttled.

“None of the scarier predictions of collector car market mass chaos have occurred,” says Cam Ingram, the owner of Road Scholars, a sales and restoration shop based in Durham, N.C. “Collectable vehicles are not flooding the market and being sold for screaming deals as their owners try desperately to raise capital—much to the chagrin of the opportunist.”

Join the conversation!

6 Responses to The Collector Car Market Is Immune from Covid19

  1. Stuart Lebenbom April 21, 2020 at 10:24 am #

    The Omni and Lancia were all attempts to copy the Golf/Rabbit.

  2. eric April 21, 2020 at 9:48 am #

    The iconic 007 Die Another Day car is going to sky rocket now like every other Aston before it!
    https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/218432252690900/

  3. zachary Schulman April 21, 2020 at 8:26 am #

    Great article. Many of us have been watching the sales rate on Bat and discussing all the factors that have resulted in the strong prices being seen during this crisis. Exercising our collector cars can provide some of the pleasures that are not available during the lock down and are needed therapies. The roads are lightly traveled now. Enjoy them.

    • Philip Richter April 21, 2020 at 8:35 am #

      It’s a great time to enjoy our cars, clean them, service them, and just hang out at the garage!

  4. gregc April 21, 2020 at 3:59 am #

    It seems the design of the Lancia looks suspiciously like that of the AquaOmni. Chicken or the egg? I don’t know, but someone really ought get to the bottom of this!