MARKETWATCH
Top, premium classic Porsches often achieve spectacular prices at high profile international auctions. But recently their catalogues have begun to include more ordinary Porsches, and David Sutherland ponders if it’s really a good ideas for owners to enter such auctions
Those who closely observe classic car auctions say there’s an emerging trend of mediocre or even scrappy machinery being entered in top level international auctions, in the hope that the glamour of the pristine Carrera 2.7s and 959s in the same sale will haul prices up by their boot straps. It’s an interesting alternative to placing such a car in a perhaps more appropriate sales medium, like Auto Trader in the UK, Craigslist in the US or Mobile.de in Germany. But it can be a risky choice, too, because it’ll cost around 10 per cent in auction fees, and on the day there might not be the saleroom chemistry you need: two bidders who want the car and throw caution to the wind when responding to the auctioneer’s goads and taunts.
And will the auction house actually enter a lesser value classic in its auction? That depends on circumstances, says Peter Haynes, spokesman for RM Sotheby’s, an international player whose sales each typically generate £20m in revenue. ‘If they’re struggling to fill the catalogue RM Sotheby’s will take a sub £60,000 car, but because auction costs are high they won’t make much money out of it,’ he tells us. ‘What they won’t do is take a bad a car and put the pre-sale estimate of a good car on it. And they will not put a reserve on it.’
If you do spot an average looking car with paint peeling off in among the gleaming Ferraris and Porsches at an RM sale, it may well be there for contractual reasons, Peter reveals: ‘Cars can get packaged up in a deal where the seller says “if you take these two cars, you have to have the others as well.”’
So let’s assume you’ve persuaded the auction house to take your marginal condition Porsche and place it in the classic car display where the champagne and canapes are dispensed to the world’s richest car fanatics at the pre-sale reception. Is this going to result in a higher sale price (high enough to clear commission and transport costs) than would be achieved in the classifieds? Haynes reckons it can work. ‘If you put a 10 grand estimate car in a room next to a 100 grand car it looks cheap and someone might buy it on a whim,’ he reasons.
RM’S April sale in Fort Lauderdale in Florida was one of its less high profile events, the highest sale price a “mere” $1.54m for a Mercedes 300SL rather than a $10m to $20m Ferrari. And here we saw a few very ordinary Porsches go under the hammer.
The cheapest was a 2003 996-model 911 Cabriolet nestling in the abbreviated part of the catalogue where cars are crowded in four to a page and with no description. Our own view is that the soft top 996 with Tiptronic transmission is not a hotly desired car, but the fresh looking silver paintwork and nicely contrasting red leather lifted it. The pre-sale estimate was $15,000–$20,900 (about £11,100–£14,800), the hammer price including buyer’s premium $20,000 and the seller receiving $17,860 (£13,200) before any transport costs that had been incurred. Craigslist might have been a better proposition…
A 1988 911 Carrera Cabriolet with a $35,000–$45,000 (£25,900–£33,250) estimate sold for $34,100 (£25,200), the owner taking home probably slightly under £21,000, so neither was this a result to celebrate. Classic auctions can be good places to sell racing cars, with the auction house able to publicise their motorsport pedigree, but RM clearly did not rate the 1988 944 Turbo Rothmans Cup racer as a big earner. It was one of 36 built for the North American market and came with a logbook detailing its races; it went into the sale with a $50,000–$60,000 (£36,900–£44,300) estimate and sold for $49,500 (£36,600).
The seller of a 1989 911 Turbo Cabriolet with airconditioning and Speedline wheels, but no other distinguishing features other than being a tidy looking car, had a better day. The estimate was $70,000–$90,000 (£51,700–£66,500) but it made $94,600 (£69,900); the seller’s net take would likely be a little over £55,000. The same model except in coupe form, and from 1987, had an $80,000–$100,000 (£59,100–£73,900) estimate but made $1750 (£1300) over that upper figure, at around £60,000.
As can be seen here, you pay much more to sell a car at an auction than if advertising on a classic website. But you may get a higher price at auction, and a big advantage is that it avoids something some owners do not like: showing the car to a string of callers, and being asked for test drives, which are always problematic in terms of insurance.
You need to weigh up the pros and cons of going the auction route, but on the basis of these results, we’d have to say that disposing of a Porsche at the lower end of the price range is unlikely to produce the price some might hope for. But it needn’t just be the sellers of the cheapies who are disappointed: the highest expectation at Fort Lauderdale was for a highly optioned 2011 911 GT2 RS with under 7600 miles which carried a $425,000–$475,000 (£314,000–£351,000) but did not make its reserve. In one sense, auctions are great levellers. PW