More of the Same? Our 2025 Classic and Collector Car Market Review

If you’re hoping your car has appreciated in the last 12 months, you might not like what you’re about to read.

If you’ve got your eye on a purchase but it was slightly out of reach 12-24 months ago, all power to you.

So, what happened in the classic and collector car market in 2025?

We’ve analysed hundreds of thousands of auction sales from 67 countries worldwide to bring you the truth and what the data tells us really happened in 2025 - and what 2026 might hold.

The Headlines

I’ll cut to the chase.

Global values fell 10% in 2025 vs 2024.

Every major market (US, UK and Europe) saw prices decline.

71% of vehicles fell in value in 2025 vs 2024.

What Patterns Are There?

If you were to sum up 2025, it can be done very simply - ‘more of the same’.

There are three patterns that we’ve seen in recent years and 2025 continued all three.

Pattern #1: Declining Prices

To put it further into context let’s take a look at the US, prices have fallen every year since 2022 and are now down 23% from their peak.

That may sound sub-optimal, the UK isn’t gonna have that crown taken off lightly. Prices in the UK have fallen every year since 2020 and are now 43% (!) below their 2020 peak.

Pattern #2: Less Desirable Vehicles

We’ve seen more lower value vehicles come to market than usual.

This shows up in the data. When you look at the market overall, prices are down 10% globally. When you look at the top 200 most popular models we track, prices are down 6% globally, not 10%.

This tells us that on a like-for-like basis, price declines remain but not as much as the initial data would suggest

Pattern #3: Too Much Supply

We’ve banged on about this for years now, but people radically underestimate certain factors that drive the values of vehicles, in particular supply. Simply, the number of cars offered to market for sale.

As basic economics teaches, if supply increases and all things remain the same, prices decrease.

We’ve seen this time and time again. 2025 was ‘more of the same’.

Market	Supply (2025 vs 2024)	Price (2025 vs 2024)
Global	+9.7%	-10.0%
US	+7.8%	-8.6%
UK	+14.8%	-9.6%
Europe	+23.4%	-13.3%

The volume of cars coming to market and price declines are incredibly inversely correlated.

At a global level, we saw 9.7% more cars come to auction in 2025. Prices declined 10%.

The US saw the smallest increase in volume (7.8%) and the smallest price declines of our major markets (down 8.6%).

The UK was middle of the pack with volume up 14.8% and prices down 9.6%.

Europe saw the highest increase in volume (23.4%) and the biggest price declines of 13.3%.

See the pattern?

Is it all bad?

No.

As ever, the car market is not a singular thing, it’s not a singular entity that moves in perfect unison across all elements. 

Some elements will do well within a year, others will perform more poorly.

Positive #1: Classics Performed Stronger

Interestingly, classics (cars defined here as 30 years old or more here), saw prices decline globally at 7.7%, compared to the market overall being down 10%.

This pattern of classics performing better than their modern counterparts held true across all major markets.

The UK classic market was the best of a bad bunch with prices down 3% vs 2024.

Positive #2: Declines But Hot(ter) Spots

Globally, every decade of vehicle production saw values decline, see above graph.

In the UK, there were some bright spots, notably pre-war cars saw vehicle values rise as well as some minor gains seen with vehicles from the 1980s and 1990s.

Positive #3: Sell-Through Rate Bounce Back

There was good news when it came to sell-through rate (STR). Simply, the number of cars that are offered at auction that sell, has risen 2 percentage points after declining every year since 2021.

Looking across markets, Europe was the only major market to see STR decline - down 1 percentage point.

The US saw STR rise 2 percentage points.

The UK saw STR rise 5 percentage points.

Positive #4: Strength At Top End

At the top end of the market it was a huge 2025. Great cars are still selling for great prices.

We saw the second highest public auction sale for a vehicle when the W196R Stromlinienwagen sold for €51,155,000. The Le Mans winning 250 LM sold for double what a 'standard' 250 LM would when it sold in Paris for €34,880,000. RM Sotheby’s ended up selling 9 of the top 10 most expensive cars at auction in 2025, see the full list here.

2026: Room For Positivity?

Cautious positivity, perhaps.

As we ended our 2024 review by saying, we’ll end our 2025 review by saying the same - the single most important factor which will drive what happens to prices in 2026 will be supply.

The rate of supply growth needs to slow in order for prices to rebound, it’s as simple as that on the supply side. This is the most important.

On the demand side, well there’s lots of talk about getting the younger generation into cars (particularly classics) and perhaps here there is cause for optimism, a recent extensive study by the FBHVC shows that of all age demographics “under 35s show the most interest in historic vehicles”.

We’re also seeing green shoots of recovery on STR, more reason for optimism.

And as always, don’t forget two things.

First, declining prices aren’t always a bad thing - they open up cars you may have otherwise not been able to afford, it gives a way for new enthusiasts to enter the hobby and it forces realistic pricing from sellers.

Second, whilst prices are what we focus on here at The Classic Valuer, we believe firmly that you should buy what you love, but buy with a drop of data. Ultimately, the most important thing is that you love what’s sat in your garage and you go out and drive it. 

Perhaps, just wait for the snow to pass before doing so.

In the meantime, I’m off to crunch some more data.

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Or check out our other article walking through the top 10 most expensive cars to sell in 2025.