Are there too many sales?

SO MUCH TALK suddenly of the classic car market being in trouble. A couple of points here: one, it isn’t, though it does seem to have flattened a little. Two, I think many of us feel uncomfortable with the term ‘market’, however naïve that may be. It’s a hobby for most of us, whether in the trade or not.

All this because, at the time of writing, we’re fresh out of the madness of the Scottsdale and Paris Rétromobile sales, the latter of which yielded a world record price (in sterling and euros, if not dollars) for the Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti. But there was a higher than usual percentage of no-sales, and that’s what’s got the pundits punditing.

Here’s what we reckon: that, thanks to date changes this year, Scottsdale and Rétromobile ended up too close together in terms of timing, especially considering that they’re 5500 miles apart; that there are too many sales; that Scottsdale’s and Rétromobile’s home venue sales (ie, Barrett-Jackson and Artcurial) have both grown significantly, and taken attention away from the other sales outside the main venues; that the mix of cars offered has been compromised (so many Testarossas and 911s for sale in Paris); that really good cars are in short supply at the moment and, in the scramble to attract sellers, auction houses gave what can now be seen to be over-optimistic estimates, thus encouraging over-optimistic reserves; and that, actually, prices have risen too quickly recently, and need to cool off. More of this on pages 16, 186 and 188.

Meanwhile, an apology. This month’s Next Month page looks remarkably like last month’s Next Month page, if you see what I mean. Due to circumstances beyond our control we had to delay the Jaguar C-type feature by one month. But it is on the way, I promise…