1967 Porsche 910
Source: bringatrailer.com
Bring a Trailer, a popular online auction site for collectible cars, posted record sales in 2023, even as classic car prices plummeted.
Bring-A-Trailer’s sales rose about 2% last year to more than $1.4 billion from $1.35 billion in 2022, said Randy Nonnenberg, the company’s chief executive officer. Bring a Trailer says that in 2023 he sold over 30,000 cars and from 2022 he increased by 19%.
Increased unit sales helped offset the price decline. The average price of a car sold on the site fell from $59,500 in 2022 to $54,000 in 2023.
The company’s growth is a rare bright spot in the classic car market in 2023, as prices have fallen from the torrid highs of 2021 and 2022 and rising interest rates have hit collectors hard. Total classic car auction sales (both online and live auctions) fell 3% last year to $4.19 billion from $4.32 billion in 2022, according to data from Classic.com. . According to classic car analysts, prices for many models have fallen by more than 10%.
592 miles 2014 Pagani Huayra
Source: bringatrailer.com
Nonnenberg said in an interview with CNBC that inflation, economic uncertainty, volatile stock markets and turmoil overseas are dampening demand from potential bidders. But he said sellers are still offering trophy cars and buyers are bidding even at lower asking prices.
“People are a little nervous about their portfolios, and that could delay discretionary car purchases,” he said. “We thought that people would stop selling or keeping their cars if they were nervous. Interestingly, we didn’t see that. There were people who were thinking about it, and the pricing just changed a little bit.’”
Bring a Trailer’s low cost and user-friendly platform also continued to attract car enthusiasts. The number of registered users grew from 880,000 in 2022 to 1.2 million in 2023, Nonnenberg said.
The number of active bidders has surged to more than 520,000. Bring a Trailer sellers pay a flat $99 fee, but the buyer’s fee is his 5% of the car’s sale price and caps at $5,000, a fraction of the fees of traditional car auction companies. The site sells everything from $3,000 motorcycles to $200,000 Porsches to $1 million Ferraris.
Bring a Trailer’s biggest draw is its auction voyeurism. Users can track bids and sales in real time, and view photos and comments on rare cars. Nonnenberg said the site auctions up to 1,000 cars at a time, and each car auction typically lasts a week.
For 2024, the company plans to launch a new suite of services to speed up the checkout process and assist buyers with paperwork, remittances and other requirements.
Nonnenberg said this year’s sales are expected to be equal to or higher than 2023 as prices stabilize and bidders become more confident about the possibility of rate cuts later this year.
“The spring months are very popular for ‘Bring the Trailer,’ because people are coming out of the winter, opening up their garages, and getting more interested in traveling and cars,” he said. “I think we’re on track for a typical spring for us. I’m really looking forward to it.”
While Bring a Trailer was unable to break the previous record for the most expensive car sold on the site (a $5.36 million LaFerrari sold in 2022), two cars sold last year. successfully sold for over $2 million. The most expensive car sold in 2023 was the 2014 Pagani Huayra, which sold for $2.9 million. It also sold a rare 1967 Porsche 910 race car for $2.5 million, a 2020 “liquid carbon” Ford GT for $1.8 million, and a 2005 Porsche Carrera GT with just 601 miles for $1.8 million.
Nonnenberg said more new cars from the 2000s and 2010s are starting to come up for auction.
“Even cars from the 2000s are starting to become collector items,” he says. “As everything becomes electric, cars from 20 years ago become more special. Many people think of BAT as a 1960s car, but it’s actually much more modern.”
