Classic.com. Auction Results Monterey 2022. ” August 2022. Gooding& Company and RM Sotheby’s results.

performing stocks, whereas middle-class car enthusiasts find themselves pinched affording the basics. But what’s more notable is that market growth is occurring outside of just the realm of “standard class” and is further broadening the definition of a collector car.

One of the insulating factors for these analogue cars is the fact that they are traded globally. The market for top-tier classics tends to be global, and as the Pound has nosedived, dealers tell us that global collectors are increasingly snapping up cars in the UK. While UK collectors might find themselves with less money to pour into cars for those with the means—or the ability to borrow at relatively low fixed rates—those same factors make this a very wise time to buy. 21

Of course, interest rates are a doubleedged sword. Those same factors that might make this an opportune time for global buying could spell disaster for those speculators who made risky purch-

The share of financed vehicles quickly drops as vehicles age and levels off below five percent for most model years between 1960 and 1994. For some model years in the 1920s and 1930s, less than two percent of vehicles are financed. 1,13

T O T A L O F S H A R E

CAR FINANCING

BOUGHT ON FINANCE BOUGHT OUTRIGHT

10%-15% 67% 85%-90% 95%

NEW CARS

33%

USED CARS

5% COLLECTIBLE CARS

ases with debt during the pandemic. 13

There are two specific concerns here. The first is that, as lending rates rise, vehicles that tend to be financed are more likely to lose value as demand declines. This is, in essence, the same concern you’re hearing throughout the global economy—that governments’ efforts to cool demand might work too well. But the larger worry is that if a significant portion of collectors have borrowed money to buy their cars, they’ll be in a hole should values dip and, perhaps, these owners will find themselves forced to sell to keep banks happy. That’s the sort of thing that can turn a “correction” into a catastrophe (as it did in the ‘90s). 1,13

You’ll be happy to hear, collectors overwhelmingly own their cars outright today. Fewer than 1 in 20 vehicles 25 years and older are likely to be financed. On the whole, these are all low numbers considering that some 85 percent of new cars are financed.