Classic car auction site Bring a Trailer sales hit record $1.4 billion

Bring a Trailer, the popular online auction site for collectible cars, posted record sales in 2023, even as classic-car prices hit the skids.

Bring a Trailer’s sales increased about 2% last year to over $1.4 billion from $1.35 billion in 2022, according to the company’s CEO Randy Nonnenberg. Bring a Trailer sold over 30,000 cars in 2023, up 19% from 2022.

The growth in the number of cars sold helped to offset a decline in prices. The average price of a car sold on the site fell to $54,000 in 2023 from $59,500 in 2022.

The company’s growth marked a rare bright spot in the classic-car market in 2023, as prices fell from their feverish highs of 2021 and 2022 and rising interest rates took a toll on collectors. Total auction sales of classic cars (for both online and live auctions) fell 3% last year to $4.19 billion from $4.32 billion in 2022, according to data from Classic.com. Prices for many models have fallen 10% or more, according to classic-car analysts.

In an interview with CNBC, Nonnenberg said inflation, economic uncertainty, a volatile stock market and turmoil overseas have cooled demand among potential bidders. But he said sellers are still offering trophy cars, and buyers are bidding, even if their offers are lower.

“People were a little bit nervous about their portfolio, so that can slow down discretionary car buying,” he said. “We thought we might see that people would stop selling or holding cars if they’re nervous. Interestingly, we didn’t see that. We still saw people wanting to trade out into something else. It’s just changed the pricing a little bit.”

Bring a Trailer’s low-cost, user friendly platform also continued to attract car enthusiasts. Its number of registered users grew to 1.2 million in 2023, up from 880,000 in 2022, according to Nonnenberg.

The number of active bidders surged to over 520,000. Sellers on Bring a Trailer pay a flat fee of $99, while the…