The Daily Vroom

Collections Are Having A Moment

A few weeks ago we touched on Car & Classic’s Collector’s Edition sale, their annual curated auction that brings together a small group of interesting cars under one banner. The second edition is now almost here, with bidding set to begin on March 21, but before even looking at the lineup it’s worth pausing for a moment on how the collection has been introduced to the market.

Because if there has ever been a better trailer video used to launch a collection of cars heading to auction, I haven’t seen it.

Car & Classic have absolutely smashed this out of the park. The production quality, the pacing, and the overall tone feel far closer to a cinematic short film than a typical auction promo, and the result immediately elevates the entire collection. Instead of feeling like a group of listings about to go live, the cars suddenly feel part of something much bigger.

They followed it with a lineup vdieo reveal that continues that same approach. The one car that stands out immediately to me is the 2019 Ferrari SP2 Monza. We saw one sell for $4,995,000 last week with Broad Arrow, so will be very interesting to see how this one does.

What makes this interesting is not simply that the videos are well produced, but that they highlight how collections are usually introduced to the world. Whether a group of cars is heading to an online platform or crossing the block at Goodings, or Broad Arrow, the announcement of a major collection is often surprisingly understated. A press release appears, a handful of photos circulate, and the cars gradually enter the catalogue. Considering the value and significance many of these collections represent, the moment they are revealed to the market rarely feels like the event it could be.

That is what Car & Classic have managed to change here. By presenting the collection through high-quality storytelling and production, they have turned the launch itself into content people actually want to watch. The cars feel curated, the moment feels deliberate, and the audience immediately understands that something special is coming.

To be fair, Car & Classic only runs this Collector’s Edition format once a year, which naturally gives them the ability to spend more time and energy on the promotion. Even so, having time is not the same as delivering something memorable, and we have all seen collections with far greater values come to market with far less imagination behind their presentation.

The full lineup heading to the Collector’s Edition sale can be seen here.

Of course there is now an interesting challenge ahead for Car & Classic themselves. When you raise the bar this high with the marketing, the auction that follows inevitably carries greater expectations, and future editions will also need to find a way to match or surpass what they have created here.

That, however, is a problem for another day. For now the more interesting takeaway may be for the rest of the auction world, because if a platform like Car & Classic can introduce a collection in this way, it naturally raises the question of why more auction houses are not doing the same.

Interestingly, Car & Classic aren’t the only ones bringing a collection to market this month.

On March 18, RM Sotheby’s begins selling the Magnus Walker Collection, and there are a few interesting dynamics around that sale as well. The entire collection is being run online and at no reserve, which is notable for a house that has historically built its reputation around live auctions and the theatre of the auction room.

Now of course you could argue RM already stepped into the online space through SOMO. The original thinking, as I understood it, was that cars not suited for RM’s live auctions would naturally find their way to SOMO. In reality though, from what I gather, that pipeline hasn’t exactly been flowing.

Seeing a collection like the Magnus Walker cars run directly through RM’s own online platform therefore raises an interesting question about how the landscape might evolve if RM decides to lean more seriously into digital auctions themselves. RM must see an enormous number of cars every year and inevitably say no to plenty of them. If even a fraction of those begin finding their way into RM-run online sales, that could start to reshape the online auction market fairly quickly.

In terms of presentation, RM have done a solid job introducing the collection. A video has been produced (seems not through RM, but directly from Magnus which is a little odd that they didn’t produce one) that captures Magnus Walker’s personality and the spirit of the cars nicely. The online auction interface itself feels fairly traditional compared with what many bidders have become used to on modern online platforms. That said, once the bidding starts, those things tend to matter a lot less.

The bigger question may simply be this: if this no reserve collection performs well, will we see RM doing more collections like this online?

Because if the answer is yes, that could become a very interesting development for the online auction world.

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