If only it had been an unfinished 911 or 356 project.
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Bill appears to be the closest at $63K, unless you include the 5% buyers fee, in which case my $65K was closer; but as it wasn’t sold, it’s hard to justify adding the 5% - just stretching a bit too much for some sort of win today…
Not at all surprised that reserve wasn’t met. Based on some crazy “project” sales on BaT, the Seller was looking for a killing, and I was looking for a bargain. We were both disappointed…
well, I did say 63K and RNM. 
Same here, but I was rooting for you David! Suspect you’d have had that car back on the road in short order!
Cheers,
LLynn
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Of course you do realize that the xk is still for sale. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Phillip
and Bobs your uncle…
Now that the bidding’s over I thought I’d check on an impression I had recently, but hadn’t verified. It seems to me that fewer and fewer E-Types are actually selling (making reserve) on BaT recently. Here are the stats:
Jul 2017: 2 of 2 sold: 100%
Aug 2017: 6 of 8 sold: 75%
Sep 2017: 4 of 6 sold: 67%
Oct 2017: 5 of 7 sold: 86%
Nov 2017: 4 of 6 sold: 67%
Dec 2017: 1 of 1 sold: 100%
Jan 2018: 2 of 3 sold: 67%
Feb 2018: 1 of 1 sold: 100%
Mar 2018: 1 of 2 sold: 50%
April 2018: 4 of 5 sold: 80%
May 2018: 2 of 3 sold: 67%
Jun 2018: 4 of 4 sold: 100%
Jul 2018: 3 or 4 sold: 75%
Aug 2018: 6 of 7 sold: 86%
Sep 2018: 1 of 3 sold: 33%
Oct 2018: 1 of 6 sold: 17%
Nov 2018: 2 of 7 sold: 29%
Dec 2018: 0 of 1 sold: 0% to date…
Never less than 50% sell rate for 14 months straight, and then 4 in a row of 33% or less, Looks like a trend to me. So what’s the story? Greedy sellers, market saturation, no more buyers… More data for the mill…
-David
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It could just be that BAT is the wrong place for cars over $50k, which includes most E-types.
A quick look at the recently ended auctions shows that 95% of them are for cars selling below $50k. And a good chunk of the top 5% are Porsches and other modern sports cars (under 25 years)
But what has changed in the past 4 months? Up until 4 months ago BaT looked to be a good place to sell an E-Type. Now, not so much…
Hagerty summed it up well in their article about shifting markets I think. 50s/60s cars are weakening. I watched a really nicely restored first gen T-bird with hardtop finish up in the teens this week. Meanwhile other things keep selling for nice prices. I’m watching a Z3M that’s up to 28K already. These were in the low 20s last year.
Old cars = Dad’s cars.
As it ever was, a younger generation is losing interest in dad’s—or Granddad’s!!!— old sports car.
I think I agree with the general theory, I am just rather surprised by the way that 4 months ago the sales percentage fell off a cliff… If it continues for long, smart sellers will probably look elsewhere to sell their E-Types.
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It seems that way, David. Needless to say, it is bad timing for some folks.
–Drew
We don’t know what the reserve has been set at on the “no sales”, so I would speculate greedy sellers.
Lets agree that there have been and still are speculators in the E type market. And some of the money people pay on BAT amazes me, but I am a known cheapskate. Here’s an example - the last 8 MG Midgets sold on BAT averaged $7575. Isn’t a nice running one worth $1500 or is it me?
As far as younger buyers - many have been shut out of ever experiencing the fun of a British sports car. Perhaps by us “blue hairs” who are living our dreams. How would they ever know of the experience? We’ve got them all hidden in our garages! I’d venture that one drive in an E, experiencing all that torque and admiring looks would make believers out of them. My 34 yr old son wants mine, badly. But I know what he wants to pay. Now that would skew the avg. lower!
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I don’t know whether what I am about to say is exclusively an MG Midget phenomenon, but I rather doubt it. A “Fair” #4 71 Midget is worth $2000, but an Excellent #2 Midget is worth $8800 (Hagerty Valuations). If I had a Midget to sell, where would I choose to sell it? If it was a #4 I doubt that I’d choose BaT. The seller’s fee is fixed at $99 independent of the selling price - quite a big chunk of $2000. BaT attracts buyers from all over the US, indeed all over the world. But the cost of shipping a $2,000 car is not that different than for a $200,000 car. So, I’m unlikely to attract buyers for a $2000 car outside my local area where CL or local classified ads might be a better and certainly cheaper option than BaT. For a #2 Midget worth $8800 I think BaT might come into it’s own. I looked at the last 12 MIdgets on BaT. I’m no expert, but most of them looked like restorations, and to a good standard. It was also interesting to note that 11 out of 12 sold. A large part of this is, of course, that 9 of the 12 auctions had no reserve, so a sale was inevitable. I suspect that BaT insists on no reserve for cars of less than a certain value. I recall that BaT has (or possibly only had) a good reputation among Miata owners for being a good place to sell. I imagine that probably goes in phases though. A string of high sales attracts more sellers, whilst a string of RNM (Reserve Not Met) has the reverse effect. I fear that if the RNM trend continues with E-Types this venue (in my view, still the best there is, despite it’s issues) will cease to be a place where I can find the E-Type I’m looking to buy, or sell the one I have in order to afford it…
-David
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I remember seeing a lot of comments 18-24 months ago that “BaT just isn’t the right venue for muscle cars”.
I used to think “Really?!”…apart from in-person auctions that seem to specialize in Muscle cars, are we really supposed to believe that muscle car guys only shop on certain venues/websites? So, BaT can feature a really great car, and the buyers are just going to ignore it because that’s not their preferred venue? Seemed far fetched to me.
A couple of years later, and everything I read is that the muscle car market is all but imploding these days.
There’s a big part of me that thinks BaT performance may be a leading indicator of the market in general on certain genres of cars.
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Both Hagerty and “Sports Car Market” have suggested the time is both now and past to sell E-Types. “Sports Car…” says to sell, as they are top of market, Hagerty says they are dropping or flat. At prices above $ 50 k I’d guess many buyers actually check sources like those to evaluate purchases. If everyone says ‘don’t buy’, maybe a large enough percent of buyers hold off.
I have suggested a favorite angle to this topic before - old T-Birds and Jaguars were restored badly by modern standards years ago. Many now are coming to market, the T-Birds from aging owners and the Jags from profit seekers. Both these trends cause price drops for two reasons - poor quality and large supply.
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Like most economic trends, I believe vintage cars have their cycles. Anyone who expected the trend to continue at the recent years spiral was bound to be disappointed. That being said, I wonder if the last several month drop may also be related to fall, winter coming. I do not see that in your 2017 numbers, but still, it could be related. Also, I wonder if the sample size is too small to be overly significant.
Tom
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David,
I was being a bit facetious with my $1500 Midget comment (I remember test driving a well used one). Every car deserves it’s time in the sun. But when a Midget sells over $10k, I’d say that’s pretty sunny out!
I find that almost every vehicle that is bid on BAT goes for more than I’d be comfortable paying. $62k for the Jag with significant work left and a bit of a crap shoot with respect to what challenges are ahead, I’d say that was all the money (plus $20K?). After so many years in boxes, what parts are missing? What assemblies need to be redone etc.etc.
What did you calculate in time and money to complete the project?