We’re halfway through 2025, and so far the classic and exotic car market is holding steady.
Auction sales totaled $2.3B in the first half of the year, up 4% over 2024, with more cars sold, stronger sell-through (70%), and average prices holding around $60K. Compared to 2024, the market feels more balanced: stable pricing, better conversion, and signs of growing confidence as we head into the Monterey Auctions in Q3.
In this report, we’ll highlight the high-level trends and dig into how the trends shift as the average value of sales change – comparing 5 “value tiers” of markets:
2025 is Pacing Toward Records, Without Price Inflation
Auction sales climbed to $2.3B so far in 2025, up 4% year-over-year, even as average prices held flat around $60K. It’s the third straight year of pricing stability, with growth driven by an increase in volume, not inflation.
More cars sold, fewer went unsold. Even with a slightly smaller catalog, total sales were up 4% to 38,280. That’s how we got to a 70% sell-through rate – the strongest we’ve seen since 2022.
Growth Driven by Online Activity
Split the numbers between online and live auctions, and the story gets clearer: most of the market’s growth is coming from online sales – especially in the lower and mid-tier segments. It’s an extension of the shift we saw kick off in 2020, and at this point, it’s nothing short of a reset.
Before COVID, the collector car world moved with the seasons – driven by major live auction events in January, March, and August. And while we still use those events as a gauge of the market, daily online auctions have flipped that script. Today, cars are selling year-round from garages and driveways around the world.
The market is faster, more transparent, and far more accessible for both buyers and sellers. That’s not a trend anymore – it’s the new normal.
Top Sales in 2025 so far
Even though we have seen more seven-figure activity at the online auctions this year than ever before, the Top 10 is still dominated by live auctions. The two biggest sales this year pulled in $89 million combined – ranking as the #2 and #6 sales in history. But the 2025 market is running on steady volume and more realistic reserves, not sky-high prices.
Notably, almost all of the Top 10 sales (nine out of ten) are cars made before 1970, and every one is either a race car or a street-ready version of one.
In contrast, when we look at the top online sales, we find road cars produced within the past 10 years (even the Singer, which is a 1991 model year – but in reality is a modern interpretation of a 90s car).
#1 Online / #30 Overall
#2 Online / #33 Overall
#3 Online / #35 Overall
Comparing Activity in 5 Value Tiers
There’s more to the story than just big-picture numbers. Break things down by price tier, and you start to see where the real action is – what’s heating up, what’s cooling off, and what’s holding steady. Each slice of the market has its own rhythm, and looking at them separately gives us a much sharper view.
Under $50K
The sub-$50K crowd kept things moving in the first half of 2025. Even with fewer cars on offer, nearly 28,000 changed hands for a combined $547M – just ahead of last year.
Between $50K-100K
Specialty cars in the $50K to $100K range are often seen as the gateway to investment-grade collecting – and they’ve quietly kept their momentum going in the first half of 2025.
Between $100K-500K
The middle of the collector-car market, the $100K to $500K tier, has been busy, but not overheated. This tier just reached its strongest liquidity since 2021 and set a new dollar-volume record, without leaning on price inflation to do it.
Between $500K-1M
Liquidity hit a new high in the $500K–$1M tier during the first half of 2025. Both dollar volume and the number of cars sold reached five-year highs, edging past the previous peak set in 2023.
Over $1M
The high end of the market put on its usual show, led by a jaw-dropping $53M sale – the biggest in recent memory. Even though fewer cars changed hands overall, a handful of blockbuster deals pushed dollar volume up 6%.
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*The CLASSIC.COM Market Benchmark (CMB) is a benchmark value for vehicles in a given Market based on data accumulated by CLASSIC.COM and calculated by a proprietary algorithm that takes into account volume and recency of each data point. CMB can be used to assess the performance of a market over a given time period. However, it does not represent the value of a specific vehicle.
** A Market on CLASSIC.COM is a grouping of comparable vehicles that have, at a minimum, the same Make, Model, and Model Generation. When relevant for purposes of valuation, a Market may be further segmented by Model Variant, Trim, Transmission Type, Body Style, and other factors.
