Traditionally, when you think about vintage and classic cars, you naturally assume that they're the sort of cars that cross the block at one of those big auction houses. While part of that is true, there is so much more to it. Classic cars can also be a hobby and an affordable one at that if you play your cards right. Today, with the industry as a whole acknowledging and embracing electrification, the landscape of classic and collector cars is simultaneously also seeing a big transformation. Demand for all types of cars from old-school to modern-day classics has seen tremendous growth over the past few years.

However, navigating the market both online and offline continues to be a challenge for buyers and sellers alike. Classic.com aims to address some of these pain points, by aggregating data from several auction houses as well as dealer listings across the country and beyond. They are essentially a Zillow of the classic and collector car world. I recently had the chance to catch up with Juan Diego Calle, the CEO & Co-Founder at Classic.com to find out more about how the site works.

How Did classic.com Come About

But, before I begin, here's a quick background about Juan and how Classic.com came about. He's been in the technology space for several years, starting out his first company back in college and eventually selling a few ventures in the 'Search Engine Space'. He then went to Yahoo back in 2004 and the experience from there was and still is extremely beneficial to what Classic is doing today. Back then they were crawling different search engines, with what's called a Meta-Search engine. A search engine of search engines if you will.

Fast forward a couple of decades - Juan and his brother, Nelson got involved in the classic car space. They created the FJ Company where they take old Land Cruisers and modernize them with newer engines and mechanicals. Soon after, they realized that it was very difficult to reliably find and source cars online. The process involved going through multiple websites and keeping track of each one to see what cars were available for sale. In addition to this, finding the correct pricing for these vehicles was also a complex process.

It was at this point that they had that 'Aha!!' moment. So, if you are familiar with Zillow.com, it basically aggregates the entire real estate market and gives you the level of price and transparency which makes the process of discovering homes and the prices associated with those homes easier. That is exactly what Classic.com aims to do in the Collector and Classic car space. The Classic and Exotic car market today is essentially at the same place where the Real Estate market was in the late 90s.

With that, I went on to ask Juan about how Classic.com as an aggregator of car auction houses and dealers, benefits a prospective buyer or seller. The process that he/she would entail and the role that the data set plays

The site's basic mission is to aggregate as many listings as possible, not just from the U.S., but from all over the world. You then put them into very relevant comparable data sets. A big piece of what Classic.com is doing is bringing up all this data together in a way that enables it to generate the pricing associated with different makes and models in a precise manner. So, users are now able to get onto the website and search across the entire inventory of classic and exotic cars out there.

Classic.com initially started out with auction houses and now they're also starting to aggregate dealer data, allowing them to now generate some interesting pricing trends around different makes and models. So, essentially, it is bringing a lot of transparency to the market, generating trust among users and allowing them to enter the market in a much more confident manner.

Next, I touched upon how the site currently displays market trends for specific models. I wanted to know if there's a way to sort this data on a chart by either brand, body styles, or for specific time periods like vintage, classics, or modern classics?

The short answer from Juan was a definitive yes. If you search for a relatively common model like BMW M3 one of the most popular models on Classic.com, you are not just going to find the body styles, but you'll also find different versions of the M3. You'll be able to dig up details of whether it was an automatic or a manual because each of them has different pricing trends associated with them.

You can find how many examples are available in the market today and how they have sold historically. You can break this information up into different categories like body style, transmission, and even color. You’ll be able to get a very clear understanding of where things were and how they're currently valued, a much better idea if you are overpaying or underpaying for a car.

I recently also got the chance to speak with Richard Reina, an industry veteran, and he told me that predicting the prices of classic cars still remains a challenge}

Juan agreed and shed some light on this aspect. The way that Classic is tackling the problem is by bringing listings both old and new together. That is cars that have previously been sold as well as cars that will be sold in the future. They normalize the data and put them into the most relevant markets for each listing. They then have to look at stuff like the exterior color, the interior, its transmission type, was the car previously restored or is an original example.

Once they're able to determine that information and a few other things across every single listing, Classic is able to generate very relevant and comparable data sets. So say for example you're looking for a red FerrariF40, the system can automatically find other cars like that and it should be able to come up with the most appropriate pricing for that vehicle. Here is what the profile for the Ferrari F40 looks like on Classic.com. The page is packed full of resources. You have a brief description of the car, all the model years that it was available, the sales chart for the past five years, where these cars were/are listed, and how much they sold for.

Moving on, I wanted to find out about the kind of growth the site witnessed during the pandemic. With the cancellation of in-person auctions, I wanted to find out what changes has the online market place seen in the past few years?

Juan says that one of the reasons that the site managed to thrive was the Covid crisis. It acted as a catalyst in the growth of the site. A lot of people were indoors at the time and didn’t have the social activities that they had before. So these people just wanted to go out and drive. They wanted a second vehicle or maybe even a third vehicle, that they could go out and drive with the family, and driving became an additional activity for them during the Covid years. That is a very different profile of a classic car enthusiast to a typical classic car collector.

A typical classical collector who owns these cars keeps them in storage or in a warehouse. On the contrary, this new type of classic car enthusiast is someone who is actually going to use the car and in many cases, in a family context. The result? The activity on Classic.com was mostly geared toward utilitarian cars. The sort of vehicles that you can enjoy and not have to trailer queen them inside a warehouse.

Anything from the late 70s would be further to it an extreme, but the core demand was for 80s and 90s vehicles and just about every car category has skyrocketed in value according to Juan. SUVs like old Land Rovers and Land Cruisers are big beneficiaries of this and are the sort of vehicles that provide a high utilization rate relative to other collector cars.

Also, in the sports car world, Porsche saw a big surge in demand, think cars like the Carrera 3.2. More recently the BMW M3 E30 and E36's. also gained traction. Now those are relatively modern cars and you’re getting into the 90s there or maybe even the early 2000s. But the reason why these cars are so popular is that you can use them. You can naturally get on the highway with them, you have air-conditioning and fuel injection. So the maintenance is less of an issue. So really, the big growth in the last two years has been in that category of cars that you can use and not just collect.

Classic.com currently has listings of cars based in the U.S. and Europe. I wanted to know if the site will eventually also include Auction Houses/ Dealer cars from other regions like the Middle East and the Asia Pacific?

According to Juan, the primary market is still the United States. However, they have started bringing in some data sources from Europe. Interestingly, Juan adds that they sort of have to expand beyond the States because classic cars are a scarce resource.

If you are a collector and you want a specific make a model. It doesn’t matter if the car is in the U.S., you need to look beyond the U.S. and the market in that sense becomes truly global. You need to look and see if the car is in Italy or Portugal, so by default, you have to be able to tap into the entire market across the globe.

Having established the FJ Company, which is essentially resto-modding old Land Cruisers, I was curious to find out what Juan thought about swapping out the gas engines for an EV motor? How does it affect the valuation of a car, because aren't you in a way compromising the originality of a vehicle?}

Juan says that while you are affecting the originality of the vehicle, you’re also making it more usable. He adds that a big driver of business for the FJ Company is taking old vehicles from the 70s and modernizing them. This process makes them more usable. He thinks that this is a trend that is going to continue to grow and Classic.com is in fact witnessing more cars that are being sold with an electric drivetrain.

The Monterey Car Week and Pebble Beach may be a few months out. But, I wanted to get Juan's take on if there is any particular car or make that comes to his mind that will make headlines across the several big auction names that will be present at the event.}

According to Juan, it's too early to say. He was reluctant to give me an answer, but, what he did tell me is that there will be some pretty important cars at the event. They have already started tracking houses like Gooding for example who will have some interesting cars in August. More cars will be announced going into June through July.

Finally, I wanted Juan's take on current and future market trends in the classic car industry in general.

Classic.com is very interested in seeing things on a more macro level. They're looking at what's happening with interest rates and with the economy in general. They're keeping tabs on how these factors are going to impact the market, which has seen a slight plateau in valuations in the last 30 maybe 60 days.

But, overall, Classic hasn’t seen a drop in prices, and new records continue to be hit across different makes models. The market shouldn’t continue to rise as fast as it has over the last few years. So, these are assets that are not as easy as stocks to trade but we are going to see a more persistent market than in other asset classes.

FAQ

Q: How much is the new electric car?

A new electric car starts at around $20,000 and can go into millions. The 2022 Nissan Leaf is the cheapest new electric car you can buy today. It starts at $27,400. Account for the $7,500 federal tax credit and it can cost you as low as $19,900. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the Lotus Evija which costs $2.8 million.

Q: Does Audi have an electric car?

Yes, Audi has an electric car. In fact, there are more than 10 Audi EVs at the moment, most of which are already on sale and some are about to enter production soon.

Q: What is the cheapest Audi electric car?

The cheapest Audi electric car is the 2022 Q4 E-Tron which starts at $49,900.

Q: How long does Audi e-tron battery last?

There is no official word on this, but an Audi e-tron battery is expected to last around 300,000 miles. Audi, however, offers a battery limited warranty coverage of 8 years/100,000 miles.