Down 11% or Up 4%? The Real State of the 2025 Collector Car Market

In our previous market update at the half-way point in 2025 the big question was ‘are we bottoming out?’

Are the market declines we’ve seen since the Covid highs (finally) starting to level off?

There were signs of it in the first half of the year.

But what do we know now that we’re three quarters of the way into 2025.

What’s happened to prices in 2025 so far?

Well, at a headline level, it’s still pretty ugly.

Globally, median prices are down 11% vs the same period in 2024. 

However, headlines hide the real story and that is one of nuance.

Let’s unpack it.

Moving beyond the global picture

While globally prices are down 11%, there’s a mixed bag of results depending on where in the world you’re looking.

In the EU, prices bucked the broader trend of decline in 2024 and rose by 18% then. Could they keep the momentum in 2025? No. 2025 saw all those gains erased, prices are back down 17% vs the same period in 2024. In other words, prices are pretty much back to where they were in 2023.

In the US, a market where prices for collector cars hadn’t declined in years has now seen two consecutive years of falls, both in 2024 (down 13%) and 2025 (down 9%).

In the UK, prices took a battering last year, falling 23% in 2024. In 2025, we’re down 8% vs the same period in 2024.

Understanding the why

So what’s going on here? What’s driving these movements? Well, it’s a mixed bag of factors but the UK is a great example of what’s really going on when you peel back the layers.

As we have seen in all major markets, supply of vehicles via auction continues to increase. The more supply, the more downward pressure on prices.

P.S. We’ve got a future newsletter edition covering online auctions and their impact on this, it may surprise you.

In the UK supply has increased by 13% vs 2024, that’s more than the US and the EU.

But yet, prices in the UK have seen the smallest declines of all major markets we track. That doesn’t make sense.

Yes, there’s too much supply of vehicles on the market right now.

The important detail though is where that supply is occurring.

And for the UK, all that increase in supply is down to cheaper, less desirable cars coming to market.

We can see this with every single price bracket under £50,000 showing increases in volume coming to market and every single price bracket over £50,000 showing decreases in volume coming to market.

In other words, part of the price declines are simply down to cheaper, less desirable cars coming to market.

When we compare prices on a like-for-like model basis, and see what’s happened to the prices of the top 200 most popular models we’ve seen sold in the UK, an amazing evolution occurs.

53% of those most common models have actually risen in value vs 2024. 47% have fallen in value.

In percentage terms, in the UK our most popular models have seen prices rise by 4% in the median cars instead of the declines we saw at a headline level.

There’s a lot of story above so to summarise:

• Prices at a headline level in the UK for collector cars are down 8%

• That’s partly driven by supply increasing, putting downward pressure on prices

• And made worse by that increase in supply being all of lower value, sub-£50k cars

• However, when you strip out the effect of less desirable cars coming to market and compare it on a like-for-like basis, the market is up 4%

With me? Hopefully that makes sense.

It shows that there is always a story behind the headlines, luckily we’ve got the data to unpick it.

A moment for the classics

A moment, not in the sense of a minute's silence, but rather a minute's celebration.

Put simply, classic car prices are outperforming the market on almost every metric we track.

Classics (defined as vehicles 30 years or older for the purposes of this analysis), have shown far more resilience than their modern counterparts. 

I’ll give you three examples.

First, globally prices are down 11% in 2025 for all collector cars. For classics, they’re down 8.7%.

Second, in the US where values have fallen 9% for all collectors cars. For classics, they’re down a mere 4%.

Third, in the UK where values have fallen 8% for all collector cars. For classics, they’re down a mere 3%.

And I’ll give you one final nugget with regards to classics.

When we look at how vehicles made across different decades have performed on price - from the 1920s through to 2010s - there are only 2 decades that have seen price levels increase vs 2024. 

Any guesses?

The answer might surprise you: it’s the 1920s and 1930s.

The 1930s has seen prices rise 3% vs last year. 

The 1920s has seen prices rise by a phenomenal 14%.

Every other decade from the 1940s through to 2010s has seen prices decline.

Wrapping up

In opening and in our half-year market review we asked the question, are we bottoming out?

At a headline level, are prices still declining? Yes.

Are they declining at a slower rate than prior years? Yes.

Are we still seeing more cars than ever coming to market? Yes.

Is that keeping a lid of upward price movements? Yes.

If we really dig into it, on a like-for-like basis, are values declining? No, we’re bottoming out.

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