Auction Stats In October, the classic and exotic car market saw a remarkable boost from a few special live auctions. While online auctions continue to drive steady growth throughout the year, October’s results showcase the impact of live auctions where expertly curated collections and broad marketing reach can deliver exceptional outcomes – especially at the high-end of the market. Dive into these trends and more in the Market Report.
October Breakdown
The 44% increase in Dollar Volume was driven by a 124% increase ($99M) in live auction sales compared to last year while online auctions showed stability year-over-year with a modest 5% increase.
We can track the majority of the $99M increase in live auction volume to a series of one-off live auctions held this year that did not occur in 2023:
- Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Fall ($50.6M)
- RM Sotheby's Junkyard: The Rudi Klein Collection ($28.8M)
- Broad Arrow Chatanooga ($8.7M)
- Aguttes Autoworld ($4.6M)
Sold Listings increased 25% overall, with online auctions growing at 17% and live auctions growing 43%. Again, we can attribute this to the one-off live auctions outlined above combined with the steady growth of online auctions we've seen the past few years.
Similar to Dollar Volume and Sold Listings, the 15% increase in Average Price compared to previous years can be attributed to the high-value listings at the one-off live events listed above. Average price at online auctions in 2024 continues to trend below both 2023 and 2022.
Sell-through Rate (STR) in October has been on a downward trend the past few years, but this year we saw an uptick in STR for both online and live auctions.
Notable Sales
Top 10 Sales / October 2024
As usual, the Top Sales this month were dominated by the live auctions, especially RM Sotheby's Junkyard auction, which holds 4 of the top 10 spots due to the rarity of the collection sold at that one-off event. We also saw one online sale break the Top 10 this month - with Bring a Trailer, coming in at #7 with a $2M sale – their 4th highest sale this year and 14th highest sale of all time.
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Top 10 Flips & Flops / October 2024
Each month, we track "Flips" and "Flops," which we define as cars with documented previous sales. This enables us to calculate the net gain or loss and the time elapsed since the last sale. While some purists argue that a genuine Flip/Flop occurs only within a 12-month timeframe from the previous sale, we believe this list offers entertainment and valuable insights that a narrower window would overlook. Admittedly, it's plausible that cars have changed hands in private transactions between these public listings; nonetheless, this data provides valuable insights into which cars have realized significant gains or losses compared to their previous sales. Enjoy this data at your own discretion.
Flips
Flops
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Market Busters / October 2024
While most statistics and reviews tend to concentrate on the upper echelon of the market, noteworthy examples are consistently emerging across all segments of the industry. Our "Market Busters" chart showcases listings that broke records within their respective market segments and across all value tiers.
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Year-to-Date
We've seen that this year, total sold and listed vehicles at auctions are set to reach record highs, surpassing both 2022 and 2023, though the total transacted dollar volume will fall below 2022’s levels and be slightly higher than 2023’s.
However, since mid-2022, the market has shown consistent trends, staying largely stable but with signs of slight cooling. Online auctions have maintained steady growth in both Sold Listings and overall Dollar Volume, though the Average Price has been on a consistent decline. On the other hand, live auctions continue to dominate for high-value sales, achieving the highest Sell-through Rates and driving periodic spikes in market activity, as seen in October 2024.
This Report includes data from the following auctions:
Online Auctions:
- ACC Auctions
- AutoHunter
- Bidders Highway
- Bonhams | Cars Online
- Bring a Trailer
- Cars & Bids
- Catawiki Classic Cars
- Clasiq Auctions
- Collecting Cars
- Collector Car Canada
- Fast Car Bids
- Formula Auctions
- Guys with Rides
- Hagerty Marketplace Auctions
- H&H Auctioneers
- Hemmings Auctions
- ISSIMI
- Kickdown
- PCARMARKET
- SBX Cars
- The MB Market
US Live Auctions:
- Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Fall
- Bonhams Audrain
- Broad Arrow Chatanooga
- Mecum Indy Fall Special
- Mecum Las Vegas
- RM Sotheby's Hershey
- RM Sotheby's Junkyard: Rudi Klein
UK / EU Live Auctions:
* 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.
**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.
Read more in our Glossary of Terms
