See my take below ⬇

Huge props to Car & Classic for that massive sale over the weekend (yes another huge weekend sale)- moving one of only 600 Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 SVs. That's an absolute unicorn right there.

We'll definitely want to bring that eye-watering sale number into the discussion as we dive into Hagerty's online auction performance so far in 2024. Seeing how their top sales stack up against heavy hitters like that Lambo will give us some good context.

Alright, now that we've tipped our cap to Car & Classic, it's time to put Hagerty's numbers under the microscope. Let's see if they've been bringing that same premium car heat to their online auctions this year or if they're still trying to find their lane. Buckle up, it's about to get numeric up in here!

Hagerty are a fascinating bunch. I'm not here to dig into their stellar insurance offerings or even their growing live auction game with Broad Arrow, or that juicy public beef with Rob Myers and RM Sotheby's (now that's a story for another day). Nah, today I wanna zero in on the numbers, insights and trends from their online auction hustle.

But first, a hot take on their website - it's vanilla as hell. Doesn't get my motor running one bit. Just bland, corporate vibes all around. The user experiences killing it right now, in no particular order? Cars & Bids, SOMO, and SBX are where it's at. When you're playing catch-up in this space, those slick new(ish) platforms can be game-changers with their smooth UX. Alright, enough jibber-jabber, let's dive into those digits.

So let's first break down their business model. They charge a 7% buyer's premium with a minimum fee of $500. There is NO maximum cap on that buyer's premium.

So far in 2024, they have sold 298 vehicles with a total value of $7.3 million. Their average sale price is $24,777. Their top sale has been the above 1968 Ferrari 365 GT 2+2 which went for $187,500.

Those are some notable numbers from Hagerty's online auctions as they try to make an impact in this space. With that premium structure and no ceiling, they could potentially bring in significant revenue if more high-dollar cars continue to sell through their platform.

Let me explain what we're seeing firstly in the chart above. Here you can see the number of sales versus the average sale price for each month this year. You can observe that the average sale price climbed from January to March and then had a sharp decline in April, followed so far by a resurgent May.

In terms of the buyer's premium they have collected, shown in the chart below, it pretty much mirrors the trend of the average sale price. The total buyer's premium collected so far is $523,000.

Just as a reference point, Cars & Bids' premiums in the same period this year are more than 4 times the amount of Hagerty's, despite having a very different business model.

Cars & Bids charges a 4.5% buyer's fee on top of the winning bid amount, with a minimum of $225 and a maximum of $4,500.

The above candlestick chart represents the distribution of sale prices for each month. Here's what you're seeing:

• Boxes: The main body of each box represents the interquartile range (IQR), which includes the middle 50% of the data. The bottom of the box indicates the 25th percentile, and the top indicates the 75th percentile.

• Median Line: The line inside each box shows the median sale price (50th percentile).

• Whiskers: The lines extending from the boxes (whiskers) show the range of the data, excluding outliers. The ends of the whiskers represent the minimum and maximum values within 1.5 times the IQR from the lower and upper quartiles.

• Outliers: Individual points outside the whiskers are potential outliers, indicating sale prices significantly higher or lower than the rest of the data.

You can see why premiums were down in April with not a single sale above $75k.

To go one level deeper, let's analyze each month's sales to show when the sales occurred and at what price points they were selling.

In January, we saw a decent number of sales clustered mostly in the $10,000 - $30,000 range, with a few outliers above $50,000.

February had a similar concentration in that $10,000 - $30,000 sweet spot, but also a notable spike of higher-priced sales from $50,000 up to around $100,000.

March continued the trend, with the bulk falling under $50,000, but an even higher number of premium sales stretching up towards $150,000.

April saw a drastic drop-off, with far fewer total sales.

But May has rebounded strongly so far, with a healthy distribution across price points, including a few sales above $50,000 again.

Let's examine the type of vehicles they excel at selling and what era those vehicles belong to. Below you can see that the 2000-2010 and 1970-1980 decades have been their most popular years for sales.

It appears that late-model and modern classic cars from the 2000s as well as iconic vehicles from the 1970s and 1980s are performing well on Hagerty's online auction platform. These two eras account for the highest number of sales so far.

While they may not necessarily be attracting the ultra-high-end, multi-million dollar classics yet, Hagerty seems to be finding success in the more accessible price ranges with enthusiast cars from 1950’s-2010.

Below you can see a Heatmap of the the top 5 models sold each month.

With Ford and Chevrolet being the top selling makes for Hagerty, we've crunched the numbers to see which model years for each brand were the most popular, as shown in the diagram above.

Below, we correlate those top model years with their respective average sale prices: The one stats that stands out the 1957 models for both Ford and Chevy commanded premium prices, averaging over $50,000.

My take on Hagerty is that they're doing just ok with these online auctions. From what I understand, when they first launched into this space, they wanted to take on the market leaders head on. But in terms of actually doing that, they're nowhere near close based on these numbers.

With all the resources they have to throw at the online auction market versus using those resources for other areas of their business, is bringing in around $1 million in revenue (not even profit) really worth it? In my opinion, unless they have a concrete plan to seriously bolster sales volumes, their efforts would be better spent doubling down on Broad Arrow. That's where they can and already have brought in really significant revenues from their premier live auctions.

Look, the online collector car auction space is getting crazy competitive out there. You've got the OG players like Bring a Trailer, but then you've also got these newbies shaking things up with fresh models and dope user experiences that Hagerty's vanilla site can't compete with.

For Hagerty to even sniff the big leagues of online sales, they're going to need to completely rethink their approach in my mind. Maybe an overhaul of that bland site design, some innovative pricing models, or just going all-in on the specific segments where they seem to be getting more traction like American muscle and classic trucks.

But at the end of the day, they've got to make some hard choices about where to put their resources. With what they're capable of, are these online revenues really moving the needle enough? Or would that capital be better spent nurturing their core insurance business and premium Broad Arrow auctions that are printing money already?

If I'm calling the shots at Hagerty, I'm taking a hard look at whether this online auction game is really worth it long-term if they can't get things popping in a major way soon. Sometimes you've got to know when to cut bait and focus on what's really working.

Wow, Collecting Cars really went all out spreading their brand globally this past weekend! Running simultaneous coffee run events with 8,000 people across the UK, plus another 3,000 in Europe and Australia? In total 9 countries, 4 continents, 10,000+ people! That's an insane logistical undertaking, but clearly part of their brilliant community-building strategy.

And how cool is it that they even threw together a last-minute event in New York Showing they can be nimble and seize opportunities on the fly. The 'secret sauce' for Collecting Cars seems to be firmly planting roots in all these different countries first, and then organically cultivating local enthusiast communities around their brand and events. Serious kudos to them for that innovative approach.

There are rumblings I’m hearing about Bring a Trailer potentially expanding overseas to be really intriguing tea. If any platform has the cachet and resources to make a serious global play, it's BaT. Seeing them throw their hat into the international ring would certainly shake things up and make for a fascinating battle as they go head-to-head with Collecting Cars on their home turfs.

No matter what, it's just awesome to see these auction platforms investing into creating real-life car communities beyond just the online realm. Keeps a finger firmly on the enthusiast pulse.