What Ed Sheeran Can Tell Us About the Market for Classic Cars<br />A notable exception last month was a 1956 Aston Martin DBR1 with a distinguished race history<br />that sold for $22.55 million — an auction high for a British auto — at RM Sotheby’s annual bellwether series of classic car sales in Monterey, Calif.<br />“The market is relatively stable, though some sectors are coming down,” said Brian Rabold, vice president<br />of valuation services at Hagerty, a Michigan-based company that insures collector-grade cars.<br />A 2004 Ferrari Enzo proved the most successful of the 71 lots at RM Sotheby’s, selling for 1.8 million<br />pounds with fees, or about $2.3 million, to a telephone bidder, against a low estimate of £1.6 million.<br />Forty-seven percent of the 71 cars didn’t sell, compared with a failure rate of 24<br />percent from 86 lots at the equivalent RM Sotheby’s auction in London last year.<br />Mr. Hatlapa added that, unlike rare 1960s classics such as the Ferrari 250 GTO, which has been priced at as much<br />as $55 million, they usually lack the allure of a race pedigree and depreciate steeply the more they are driven.<br />“I don’t do it as an investment.”<br />That said, since 2005, classic cars have generated the highest returns among so-called passion investments, with prices rising an average of 332 percent, more than two times the equivalent increases for watches, wine<br />and jewelry, according to a Coutts index published this week.
