Market Intelligence
Auctions 2021, a genuinely positive balance
The classic car auction market collapsed in 2020 due to the pandemic, but rebounded spectacularly in 2021, surpassing even pre-pandemic levels in terms of total turnover and average prices. This was achieved with a lower number of cars sold, indicating a trend towards higher prices. Online auctions have also become more popular, with lower commissions and attention from previously uninterested buyers. The market for cars priced over one million Euros also saw a significant increase. These trends are detailed in an in-depth analysis in The Key, Top of the Classic Car World 2021.
The collapse of the international classic car auction market in 2020, when the pandemic threatened to bring with it a long and hard-felt economic crisis, brought down the values and quantities of cars sold to the same levels as 10 years ago. This violent and sudden demise was exacerbated by the impossibility to organize physical auctions in presence, replaced in extremis by online equivalents which, against all the odds, achieved the hitherto unthinkable: large-scale adoption by the large auction houses.
The powerful boost given to the economy and to private individuals by the Biden administration in the US and by the Next Generation EU fund, combined with an unexpected and rapid recovery of the world economy, paved the way for a spectacular market revival in 2021, with final numbers that even managed to exceed the already excellent results of 2019, the last year before the pandemic struck.
