Market Intelligence
Historics and Silverstone: investment opportunities
The British auctions in May by Historics and Silverstone offered affordable prices and opportunities. A Subaru Impreza P1 set a record by selling for double its estimate, while a 458 Italia was sold for almost half the price of a 458 Speciale. McLaren MP4-12C and hot hatches reached high prices compared to market averages. The last Cooper S Mini sold at Silverstone set a new record. Historics sold 74.48% of 192 cars and generated £4,943,581 turnover, while Silverstone sold 48 lots out of 86 and generated £3,557,783 turnover with higher average prices.
Today, I’d like to talk about auctions “within reach”, or rather auctions where the prices are affordable and the opportunities more than possible: the British ones in May with Historics and Sllverstone.
Before giving you an overview of the results and presenting some interesting lots to capture market trends, I’d like to point out one episode in particular: a Subaru Impreza P1 from 2000, offered by Silverstone and estimated at £25,000-£30,000, went for £50,063 (€58,428), setting a record in the process. And there’s more: just a few weeks earlier, a similar exampled arrived at auction with the same estimate and set a new record at £45,000 (so +10% in a month!). The story might have ended here but there’s something important I need to tell you. In one of the first pieces I wrote for TCCT (March 2020), for space limitations, a “purchasing guide” related to the P1 was cut out. At the time, it was sitting around the £20,000-£25,000 mark, so I went to re-read what I wrote and I realised that it was the same car sold today at Silverstone. In 2020, I recommended buying it at £24,750 because, as I wrote at the time, “it will have a great future, if not in terms of price increase at least in terms of fun” (actual words). I don’t want pat myself on the shoulder, but I would like to emphasize that the cars we propose here as “cases” are always chosen in view of their future potential. Nothing is certain, let’s be clear, but certain rules are almost always confirmed.
