By the Numbers: The Collector-Car Market in 2024
This has been a year of change for the collector car market we watch so closely. Many shifts we had seen coming for a few years finally made the official transition in 2024. Many car values fell. Some rose. Others stayed flat. As always, though, thousands and thousands of enthusiast vehicles were bought and sold over the last 12 months. We dug into the data to see what the trends and stories were for the market in 2024.
Online vs. Live
It was a big year for online auctions. They had already gained significant traction in past years (especially given their lack of complex logistics and event planning during the pandemic), and the number of online transactions quickly outnumbered live auctions by 2021. That said, 2024 was the first year where the number of cars offered online more than doubled that of live auctions.
The gap widened this year as the number of live auction transactions substantially dropped for the first time since 2020, when most live auction events were canceled early. The gap is a little narrower for the global auction trade, but online auctions still outnumber live auctions by 72 percent worldwide.
As online sales continued to grow year-over-year, the total value of vehicles sold at live auctions regressed for the first time since the pandemic's start, dropping over seven percent this year (or $138.4M in real value). Even in 2020, when all future live events were canceled, live auctions outsold online auctions by $180M in North America.
However, online auctions have continued to grow since then, and for the first time, online total sales finally surpassed live auctions in 2024, now holding a $34M lead after increasing five percent (+$85.6M). This trend holds globally but by a narrower margin, with online auctions only outselling live auctions by $25M.
The recent development of private auctions (sometimes called "Sealed Bids")—where the bidder pool and final price are kept private—is one of the factors behind the drop in live auction totals.
Private Auctions
In the past, when a McLaren F1 or a car of similar stature was announced for auction, its sale would be one of the biggest events in the car world all year. With the growing trend of offering this caliber of cars in private auctions without public bidding or a published price, live auctions also lose much of their audience.
Further, we estimate it reduced this year's publicly visible, live auction total by approximately $200M. While the trend will probably continue, the practice could fade if consignors feel they're missing out on a hot public auction market.
Top 10s
Live auctions still maintained a lead in selling the most valuable vehicles—none of the top 10 most expensive auction vehicles this year sold at an online auction. Part of this difference is that the most valuable vehicles sold online tend to be modern while more vintage vehicles steer toward live auctions, though there are some exceptions.
Younger collectors are becoming a large part of the market
The demographics of the classic car market continue to change slowly every year, but it is worth pausing in 2024 to observe the youngest generation of enthusiasts—Gen Z. Defined as those born after 1996, they now have a nearly 10 percent share of insurance quotes with Hagerty. Further, their share is nearly triple that of the oldest generation—the Pre-boomers (born before 1946).
With Gen Z's nine percent share of Hagerty insurance quotes, combined with Millennials (born 1982-96), this cohort of younger buyers represents over a quarter of the market (30 percent).
But they still trail Gen-X and Boomers at 34 percent and 33 percent, respectively. It will still take some time, likely a decade or more, before Millennials step up from their bronze position.
The market has noticed this generational shift, as cars previously not considered collectible have been appearing at more and more auctions—many selling for record prices. As new enthusiasts enter the market and make their preferences known through higher vehicle prices, new market segments emerge.
Indexes—Market Segment
While vintage trucks, Japanese vehicles, 1980s and 1990s (RADwood era) vehicles, and modern supercars have been popular in the market for the past decade, this year we launched indexes representing those four segments.
Using Hagerty Price Guide values like our existing indexes, the new indexes show values for those vehicles over the past five years are up between 42 percent and 73 percent. That range of appreciation compares favorably to the five-year performance of the Blue Chip Index and the Ferrari Index, which are down 0.2 percent and nine percent, respectively.
Looking ahead
With many of the January auctions nearly finalized, we are already looking ahead to see how 2025 will be different. We'll also be scoring the predictions we made about 2024 a year ago, and making more predictions for 2025, in the coming days.
