Maranellos are disappearing

Alan - just for you there's a couple more 550 at Silverstone Auctions soon with arguably reasonable estimates

 

Thanks Jimmie I've seen them. I quite like the Grigio Titanio one.

With all the on line auctions that have sprung up I don't fully understand why a seller would use a traditional auction model these days, that is actually an on line auction anyway.

There's a huge spread created with premiums on both ends that means someone really needs to overbid the car for the seller to get any reasonable return.

Silverstone charges are as follows:-

£250+vat catalogue fee
5%+vat sellers fee
12.5%+vat buyers fee (rising to 13.5% if you bid on line).

Vs Collecting cars

6% buyers fee.

Lets say the seller is expecting £60,000 back for their car - considering retail asking prices are currently circa £90,000 on the most part. Likely having seen the numbers achieved on line recently.

On CC bidding needs to hit £63,600 for the seller to hit his number.

At Silverstone he'd need a bid of £73,485 (£74,251.80 on line) to realise the same £60,000

So a potential buyer needs to be bidding £10,000 more for the seller to hit his number assuming that number is around the £60K mark.

This is no longer about "what's the car worth". The seller has chosen an outlet that's simply going to cost £10,000+ more in fees.

Because of that I predict a no sale, but I'll likely be completely proved wrong as I see nothing rational about the current market at all.

 

I am not saying that this is the case here, but if you call up some of the private brokerages wanting to sell X, one of the things you often hear is that they just happen to have sold another X which wasn't in quite as good condition/ more miles/ less history etc for a price that is high enough to get you interested since yours should logically be more. That's sales tactics 101 and doesn't always equate to a real transaction. Less easy to get away with in the age of the internet.

Again, not saying any of this is the case here, but I've seen it numerous times in my dealings with private treaty brokers over 35 years.

 

I don't understand why anyone sells anything at auction, irrespective of the level of fees. Buyers have to take a big risk. No chance to have the car inspected, no comeback if it is a pile of s**t, so they are going to build in a margin to address any problems and for the risk. Then add the fees. Even if the fees are low, the seller is going to get rock bottom. Much better to sell privately IMO. Buyer has ample opportunity to check the car out and minimise his risk, so will pay best price. No costs to be deducted (not even advertising these days - there are several high exposure sites where classics can be advertised for free).

When I sold my Dino, there were two spiders at auction at the same time, so they should have fetched a premium to my FHC. Both were very low mileage (half the mileage of mine), excellent colour combos (one identical to my car), one was a concours winner and the other one looked as though it could have been. Yet I got more cash in my pocket than either of the other vendors.

 

I can see why auctions would make sense to the seller in certain situations:
* large portfolio sale when you don't have the time or the knowledge/inclination (e.g. inheritance estates)
* when you want high certainty of sale (assuming a sensible/no reserve) and are in hurry.
* rare/old and valuable cars where provenance rather than mechanical conditions are the priority and you want to reach the largest possible field of buyers, and pit them against each other.

In the first two situations a buyer might be able to land a bargain because the seller in constrained in some way, assuming there are no hidden issues.

What I don't understand is why for the kind of cars we are talking about like the 550, bought to be driven rather than purely as a investment in a plastic bubble, would be worth bothering with at an auction at all, unless you are in a real hurry/need certainty. I bought and sold my 550 privately, and had sensible transactions processes each time. However, I also had the time to deal with all the details, time wasters etc.

I think the "non-market" we had in these cars for a while (i.e sellers and buyers too far apart) may be driving some of the more peculiar outcomes. For example, I was at Bonhams Zoute a few weeks ago when I came across a 20,000km LHD 512M that had been for sale at Joe Macari in London for a long time at a "pie in the sky" price of £220k/245k euros. Clearly an investment car bought during the froth of 2015, and not driven much since. Sold for 145k euros not including buyers premium, which probably left the buyer with something like 110k euros less than the original asking price. If the seller had taken a more realistic pricing approach initially and also gone privately, he might be better off because how many potential buyers simply rolled the eyes at the 245k asking and moved on but would have paid more than his auction proceeds in a private sale?

 

Yes, that's fair enough, and you can add one more: there is something seriously wrong with the car which isn't immediately obvious from the cursory inspection that is all one can do at auction, and you don't want the buyer to find out about it until he has parted with his money.

 

Exactly. Years ago a Lancia Aurelia B24 convertible I bought was an expensive and time consuming lesson when the gearbox internals all turned out to be bodged from non-originals, and failed after 15 miles. The auction house, now part of RM Sothebys, had no interest, needless to say.

 

Price point.

2003 575M F1 RHD 74,735 miles - Sold £41,340

Looks mechanically well kept but not cosmetically. Lots of little bits here and there that will no doubt add up.

https://www.tradeclassics.com/auctions/ferrari/2003-ferrari-575-m-maranello/#bidhistory

I see Justin Banks was bidding on it. I wonder if he was the winning bidder, he loves a tatty Maranello.

 

This describes how I feel as a buyer. Some of the prices being asked for cars are so far off the mark that any possible conversation is just going to be a waste of time. So I often don't even open dialogue.

The two near misses I've had were both off market cars looking to be moved on by owners at what appeared to be realistic prices. Unfortunately neither deal completed but it wasn't about the money in either case.

 

Interior looked bad, but that’s a good price.

 

There's a former owner of that car that posts on here.

 

Ah really?! Interesting. If it’s been properly maintained it could be a great deal. Although not sure the going rate for a dash re-trim, etc. Haven’t seen many 74k mile cars for sale, save the JB 100k miler that was on sale a while ago.

 

I posed a similar question over on a thread at BaT for Dougs auction on the 68k mile 550 he just sold. How many USA 550's have more than 60K miles on them.....the europeans are more likely to crush big "continental miles" but there can't be that many globally with 60k or more? Perhaps a few dozen at most?....maybe less? I'd be curious what you all think on the number of "big mile" cars......

 

My Porsche Cayenne GTS just ticked over 60k miles this past weekend. It looks and drives like new. Not sure if Ferrari’s age differently to other makes, but I imagine the number of owners and service history are more important as indicators of care taken.

I guess a question for someone who understands the mechanical components could be: what deteriorates based on miles instead of age?

Rubber hoses and seals get brittle with age (and actually stay in better condition if the car is used).

I think switchgear gets sticky just with age alone.

Leather shrinks (probably accelerated with hot conditions / sunlight exposure).

If you disregard the obvious consumables like brake pads, discs, clutch, etc, what is left that deteriorates due to miles? So far I have come up with:

- Paint condition
- Glass (inc. headlights)
- Interior wear and tear (e.g. seat bolsters)

 

I have the mileages for 431 UK RHD 550 Maranellos (although note that I haven't attempted to filter out cars no longer registered). Of these, 2 have over 100k miles, another 3 have over 90k miles, 2 over 80k, 21 over 70k and 28 over 60k.

 

I guess I will add:
- Shock absorbers / suspension components
- Steering components

 

Makes me wonder what the other 403 have been doing these past 20+ years...!

 

I can answer that for one car, since mine is one of them. It's that they just aren't driven every day and, particularly in the UK if you're only getting them out in good weather on a weekend it tends not to put that many miles on even if you add in the occasional trip to Italy.

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Your car is my perfect 550 spec-how long have you owned it and how many miles have you done?

 

It was my perfect spec too! I bought it in March 2008 when it had about 25,000 miles and I've added 15,000 more since then. Shamefully little of those of late, even disregarding this year's issues. Although I must admit that digging out the picture in my previous post set me longing for a sunny day, a clear road and no travel restrictions!

 

I've already asked, but he won't part with it. I completely understand why.

It's pretty much ideal spec for me also.

 

lovely car

it was strangely a great year for driving (putting all other issues to one side) if you were lucky with the timing. I did a run from London through France, Germany and Switzerland to Modena, Tuscany and near Rome and back in late summer, between lockdowns, in a very fast car of another marque. Much lighter traffic than usual, brilliant weather, the usual destinations not crowded, Italian beach bars not overworked. It would have been a great drive in a Maranello. The Alpine passes had maybe half the normal traffic.

 

Collecting Cars has some very tempting offers. Addictive format also. Clever!

 

The tdf blue one that has just popped up at at Nick Cartwright looks lovely.

 

And so it should be at £120k! ;-)