After six happy years, Kevin Harris, 55, is selling his Porsche 944 S2 convertible. He’s advertising the car, which was registered in 1990 and has done 179,000 miles, for £9995. “I had always wanted a 944, and when this one came up for sale, I bought it on impulse,” he said. “I have £30,000 to spend and plan to replace it with an Austin-Healey 3000 – another car that I’ve always wanted.”
Harris is one of the many thousands of Brits who will buy or sell a classic car this year. The sector is one of the few to have flourished during the pandemic, with dealers, auctioneers and analysts reporting healthy sales across the board and rising prices for the most sought-after models.
Last month, the Leonard Collection of 38 rare Porsches was sold for £7.5 million by online auction house Collecting Cars, the highlight a Carrera GT that went for £765,000 – a new European auction record.
Those involved in the classic car sector believe the nation’s appetite for old cars is being fuelled by a combination of pent-up demand as people are freed from lockdown; a desire to reward themselves after the hardship of the past 15 months; the proliferation of online auctions, where desire can be satisfied at the click of a button; and a rise in many people’s disposable wealth – by as much as £100 billion collectively, the Bank of England estimates.
John Mayhead, editor of the Hagerty UK Price Guide, said: “There was a pronounced upward shift in the UK classic and collector car market last summer after the lifting of the first lockdown. This has continued, although not at the same rate, this year, and things have remained buoyant.”
Hagerty’s Classic Index charts the changing prices of 50 popular classic cars. The annual price change is +1.5%, but in the first three months of this year, it was +2.0%.
“This figure shows that, despite the bad weather and constraints, enthusiasts are still buying,” said Mayhead.
“Significant quarterly rises have been shown in the Alfa Romeo 1750 GTV (up 8.4% to £33,075), the DeLorean DMC-12 (up 8.8% to £33,000) and the Ford Sierra RS Cosworth (up 15% to £55,850).
“The Sierra points to an increasing demand for homologation cars that people remember from their youth.”
Another area of the market getting increased activity is desirable cars from the 1980s and 1990s. Hagerty’s classic car insurance business arm reports that nearly a third of the quotes it issued in April were for vehicles from that period.
“The difference between this boom and past ones is that enthusiasts, rather than speculators, are the power in the market,” said Mayhead. “They’re buying the cars that they love and remember from growing up, rather than buying them as commodities. For this reason, we don’t believe the market will get overheated.”