Classic car collectors step on the gas as prices rise

Prices in classic-car markets are starting to look frothy

A 1995 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé
A 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé fetched $142m at auction in May
(Image credit: © Mercedes Benz)

Stocks have had a rotten time of late. Collectables, on the other hand, have soldiered on. Sales results from the big three auction houses (Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips) have thus far been robust. The same is true for classic-car auctions. Several cars fetched six-figure sums at Bonhams’s Goodwood Festival of Speed sale at the end of June. The auction house followed that at the start of July with its first sale at the Gstaad Palace hotel in the Swiss Alps in 14 years, successfully selling 89% of lots for a total of CHF7.5m (£6.4m). Top billing went to a rare 1991 Ferrari F40, which fetched just shy of CHF2m (£1.7m). Next month, RM Sotheby’s holds its annual Monterey sale in California. With a number of cars valued in the millions of dollars, including a 1924 Hispano-Suiza H6C Torpedo, with a chassis made from tulip wood and a high estimate of $12m, it will be a key test of market sentiment.

Even ordinary models are fetching high prices. Last month, an iconic Ford Capri, built in 1972, sold for £74,250, setting a new record for the model. To be fair, it wasn’t any old Capri for sale at Classic Car Auction’s Summer Sale in Warwickshire. It was a one-of-a-kind “prototype” model for the RS3100 Capri, the blueprint for a production run of 249 RS3100s made the following year and the basis for the popular coupé. The seller bought the car from Ford in 1975 for £1,500 – around £21,000 in today’s money, “showing just how much the modest Capri has appreciated in half a century”, says Rob Hull on This Is Money.

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Chris Carter
Wealth Editor, MoneyWeek

Chris Carter spent three glorious years reading English literature on the beautiful Welsh coast at Aberystwyth University. Graduating in 2005, he left for the University of York to specialise in Renaissance literature for his MA, before returning to his native Twickenham, in southwest London. He joined a Richmond-based recruitment company, where he worked with several clients, including the Queen’s bank, Coutts, as well as the super luxury, Dorchester-owned Coworth Park country house hotel, near Ascot in Berkshire.

Then, in 2011, Chris joined MoneyWeek. Initially working as part of the website production team, Chris soon rose to the lofty heights of wealth editor, overseeing MoneyWeek’s Spending It lifestyle section. Chris travels the globe in pursuit of his work, soaking up the local culture and sampling the very finest in cuisine, hotels and resorts for the magazine’s discerning readership. He also enjoys writing his fortnightly page on collectables, delving into the fascinating world of auctions and art, classic cars, coins, watches, wine and whisky investing.

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