[ CHASING CARS ] Nigel Boothman’s market analysis
Mixed results as the classic car market feels its way towards positivity and optimism
Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante X-pack fetched £213k at Bonham’s Goodwood Members’ Meeting sale
The true direction of 2025’s classic car market was starting to emerge as results came in from the early summer sales, with a trend towards the positive as the sun came out.
If the Goodwood Members’ Meeting in mid-April can be said to kick off the season, it was a relatively good start for Bonhams, hitting a 77 percent sale rate and achieving good prices for traditionally investable cars: £403k for a 1967 Ferrari 330 GTC, £291k for a 1928 Bentley 4½-litre VdPstyle tourer, £213k for a flashy Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante X-pack. Still, there were few signs of life in the troubled pre-war market, with ‘no sale’ almost the standard result for some glamorous and well-presented Rolls-Royces and Bentleys.
RM Sotheby’s Shift Online sale for cars in Europe and the UAE seemed to catch the cold caused by President Trump’s ongoing tariff shenanigans, with missed reserves for supposedly valuable modern and ‘youngtimer’ Mercedes and Porsche models, but more action in the sub-£100k sector, as Nineties and 2000s rally inspired favourites – including a 1993 Escort RS Cosworth (£65k), a 1994 Delta Integrale Evo II (£87k) and a 2000 Mitsubishi Evo ‘Tommi Mäkinen’ (£39k) – did well.
In America, the Porsche market remains strong, with a 76 percent sale rate at Broad Arrow’s Air and Water sale, with notably good results for the water-cooled, front-engined cars of the Eighties – will prices here ever follow? That said, the headliner was a Rüf CTR Yellowbird, which sold for $4.68m (£3.52m). Some way off the $6m (£4.6m) taken by Gooding & Company for a similar car at Amelia Island in March, but Broad Arrow’s example couldn’t boast a 1040-mile odometer reading.
Market indicators
Seventies Ford and Eighties hot hatch values bumped by nostalgia; svelte Swede a safe investment bet
1956 Bentley S1 Hooper saloon, £7594
Hampson, Bolesworth Castle, 4 May
Proof that no-reserve sales can come back to bite the vendor, no matter how aristocratic the car. This is one of just 39 of these swoopy Hooper bodies, and with low ownership and a Nineties restoration it looked well under-estimated at £16,000-£18,000. Did that pessimistic forecast make bidders unreasonably cautious? Perhaps, but at such a chicken-feed sum, there was room for some extensive recommissioning.
1967 Volvo P1800S, £22,345
WB & Sons, Newcastle, 26 April
In a post-covid blip, these svelte-looking Volvos fetched up to £40,000 at British auctions and even more in Europe and the US. Pretty though they are, they’re no Aston rival, so instead they’ve settled into their own stable following and look a safe place to keep some cash. This one was better than its £14,000-£18,000 estimate and rightly rose closer to our £27,500 book value for a mint example.
1977 Ford Granada Ghia, £29,531
H&H, Duxford, 9 April
At least Fords with RS badges have driver appeal and a bit of motorsport cred – what’s the appeal here? Pure nostalgia, as seen with significant prices paid for humble Escort vans and Transits with tiny mileages. The 31,208 miles on the clock of this car was key to this remarkable result, as was single-family ownership, so is this the latest growth area? Any old Ford models in powderpuff survivor condition look very good news.
1990 Renault 5 GT Turbo, £26,450
Bonhams’ Members’ Meeting sale, 13 April
After the spectacular success of the hot hatch entries at Iconic’s NEC Restoration Show sale (see previous issue), the needle has moved for all the acknowledged classics. This was a handsome and restored one-owner car with just 68,000 miles. In need of some TLC after a period of storage, it could be taken either way – up to concours standard, or down to your local one-way system for a thrashing.
1966 Jaguar E-type FHC, £146,500
Historics, Farnborough, 3 May
There was another ’66 S1 fixed-head in this sale, an unfinished project that needed trimming and finishing, which sold for £103,000 less than this superlatively restored example. Which car was the better buy? Hard to tell, but it’s interesting that discerning bidders are still prepared to push well into six figures for the right car, despite the recent gloom surrounding E-type values.
Jaguar XKs – low demand equals the new best buys?
While a lot of attention has been paid to the sharp dip seen in Jaguar E-type values, the older XK family could have slipped further still. With a generational shift reducing demand for most Fifties sports cars, the abundance of XKs should exceed requirements for the foreseeable future, making them very tempting prospects – but only if your ambition is to drive, rather than invest.
Our top two Price Guide categories for the XK120 roadster dipped from £115k and £80k to £100k and £70k in the last two years, and recent results point lower still – £63,250 for a 1953 example with an older concours restoration at Bonhams’ Members’ Meeting sale, while an SE coupé went unsold (est £70k-£100k). Also without new homes were an XK120 DHC at H&H on 9 April (est £45k-£55k) and an SE roadster at Historics on 3 May, estimated at £68k-£75k.
The XK150 coupé is currently a hard sell, too. Historics passed the pair it had – estimated at £45k-57k and £65k-£75k – while Hampson disposed of a delightful home-market 1958 XK150 SE FHC (below) on 4 May for just £29,531. If £30k-£40k is the new mark for a decent one, that’s hard to beat for value.
Treat on a Budget – 1997 Impreza WRX STi, £3150
This Japanese-import Subaru Impreza STi, offered by Hampson Auctions at its 4 May Bolesworth Castle sale, looked cheap for a 73,000-mile example with no rust, unmodified looks and a performance hike. Subaru’s station wagon never had the image of the more familiar three-box saloon, but it’s got a strong following of its own. The handling and performance are more or less identical, and the useful boot makes it an easier ‘sell’ to sceptical members of the household.
Apart from the unbreakable 4WD adhesion and the stonking power – 315bhp is claimed for this one, after a chip upgrade from a specialist – there’s the prospect of turning a small profit, too. With the best Impreza special editions like the P1 and 22B disappearing into collections, it might not be long before we’re saying, ‘Remember when you could buy an STi wagon for a few grand?’
PRICE GUIDE MOVERS
On the up
This month’s chart is dominated by one marque: people still want Porsches
On the Slide
The delights of pre-Beatles era cars no longer hold as much appeal
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