Auctions Commentary from CCFS Market Analyst Richard Hudson-Evans
Although embattled Sterling is at a 31 year low to the US dollar, and the EU rival euro has not, as yet, sunk in value as much as the pound in your pocket, there has been no obvious sign, again thus far, of a dollar driven Gold Rush of Yukon proportions buying up the over-supply of UK auction cars. Rarely has a foreign accent been heard in English auction halls in the recent past and there have been few sightings in the car parks of EU member state reg plates.
For starters, with such uncertainty on the airwaves and vendors’ reserves yet to adjust to an unpredictable tomorrow, let alone a future markets which is beyond accurate prediction, the trade have not been buying many auctioned cars lately. Rather, dealers have been attempting to off-load slow to shift stock at auction, most becoming sellers rather than buyers.
The UK auction market has been swamped with left-hand drive migrants from when the sale rates were all above 70% and some as much as 95%. Indeed, the entry lists are still being disadvantaged with transporter loads of left hookers plying for new owners over here when they have failed to sell over there. The UK market has been and is still perceived to be a fruitful dumping ground for cars with Italian and Irish Republican plates.
The really blue chip motor cars are simply not being auctioned right now. When they do change hands, they have been doing so out of the public arena, between dealer and client or between the current owner and the next one. Top cars in top quality rarely venture out of collections or dealers showrooms until sold. The all-important auction sale rates that inform stakeholders in the classic car market how trading is really going meanwhile have been drifting southwards as huge numbers of average and below average classics, along with the not so classic, fail to sell to an auction public, who are becoming pickier by the no-sale.
Cars being consigned from would-be Exiters trying to cash in on their investments - so often never cherished or enjoyed, in many cases never driven anywhere apart from between unit and trailer to auction return - are so obviously unloved. One look at these rejected assets in the metal is all it takes to see through their fake tans, while a browse of the history files can often be completed in nano-seconds. Their only certain future is to be auctioned ‘Without Reserve’ for whatever an overseas national is prepared to buy their old cars back for!
The current assumption among the chattering classes, of course, is that squadrons US or Eurozone vultures will land shortly to carry off all our classics at what will appear to be bargain prices for those paying for Sterling-priced cars in speculator driven currencies. This will only happen if the markets for collector cars in other economies really are in better shape than our own, and the transport costs and taxes levied on migrating classics make economic sense. Only if reserves are adjusted to reflect reality can there be a healthy home market again, where raging bulls and ravenous bears do not get a look in.
Do we really want to have to buy back all our automotive heritage from foreign predators? For after several decades, during which many thousands of air miles were flown and quaysides of containers were crammed with repatriated classics, our stables are currently well stocked with British thoroughbreds. Although if we cannot afford to prevent our past being exported, as with any commodity of course, the prices of those classics that survive an export cull should go up, eventually.