Classic cars have become ten percent more expensive again
05/17/2022
We don't normally notice when classic car prices shift internationally because exchange rates change. It all happens relatively slowly and usually in small steps. However, as the USA is one of the most important classic car markets, it is of course worth taking a look at how the USD is developing from time to time. And there have indeed been considerable shifts in the last 12 months.
Just a year ago, you could buy USD 1.0 for EUR 0.82; today you pay EUR 0.96. The US dollar has also strengthened against the Swiss franc; in May 2021 you paid CHF 0.90 for USD 1.0, today we have parity, so a dollar is exchanged 1:1 for a franc.
This means that Americans can now buy a classic at least ten percent cheaper than a year ago, while it has become around ten percent more expensive for Europeans to shop in the USA. As Americans are interested in investing in tangible assets anyway in order to avoid inflation, they will probably also buy more classic cars in Europe. Perhaps we have already seen the first signs of this at the Bonhamsand RM/Sotheby's auctions in Monaco.
In the medium term, the change in demand will probably also manifest itself locally with rising classic car prices, because no country is (really) an island. This will be more true for cars that are of interest to Americans, for example, and less so for those that rarely cross national borders.
