Marketplace

Russ Smith tells us what’s happening with the market.

This is one of those ‘never trust the photos’ tales, that so nearly went very wrong. A good friend I’ve helped to purchase two classics in the past pinged me an email the other day. He was keen on replacing his very tired and boring modern Volkswagen with an older and better-quality German saloon for daily duties, which sounded like a fine idea. He’d even seen such a car coming up in a classic sale very soon.

There’s always a catch in these conversations, and here it comes. Said friend was on holiday in Scotland; said car was being sold about 500 miles or so closer to the English Channel. Was I by chance going to the sale and able to inspect it? Sadly not – I had a pressing engagement in Cambridge – but I knew a trusted mate would be there, and by now had taken a look at the car’s photos and details and agreed it did look rather tempting. The only slight niggle was the low estimate, but this auction house is known for those, so I dismissed it. This was, after all, a shiny red car of good provenance and low mileage. I even suggested that it might make twice what was expected.

So, with one friend primed to bid online and me sat in the car park of a Seat dealership waiting to relay the thumbs-up, I took a call from my man on the scene. ‘The bonnet and roof are faded to a different shade, the interior’s scruffy, it’s not even half as good as the write up or photographs suggest. But I bet some numpty will buy it over the phone for far too much money on the strength of those photos.’

He was right, they did, but at least it wasn’t bought by my friend up in Scotland.

‘The photos did make the car in question look quite tempting’

Russ Smith has been following the classic car market for more than two decades and contributes to Practical Classics, Classic Car Weekly and Classic Cars.