Hagerty CEO speaks: From changes in the classic car market to being the industry's 'Bloomberg'

Mon, Mar 10, 2025, 2:17 PM 3 min read

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — In keeping with tradition, the Amelia Concours classical car amusement picked, what else, a sports car with racing practice arsenic its champion successful show.

The 1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B, a car considered the champion sports car of its time with a chassis derived from motorsport, took apical honors. (The Amelia historically tends to absorption connected sports and racing cars.)

Classic car insurer Hagerty (HGTY), which has been moving the Amelia for 4 years now, noted that getting your hands connected the ultra-rare 8C 2900 volition acceptable you backmost a sizable magnitude — possibly arsenic overmuch arsenic $20 million.

But that's beingness — and a acquainted terms constituent — astatine the Amelia.

McKeel Hagerty, president and CEO of Hagerty, believes the Amelia is becoming thing of a Pebble Beach for the Eastern US, wherever ultra-rare cars are winning prizes and coming up for auction.

“If there's 1 lawsuit similar this, you know, with Pebble Beach successful the summer, we deliberation there's a spot for Amelia to beryllium present [in the spring], benignant of permanently successful people's minds,” Hagerty said successful a roundtable interview. “I deliberation we proved that there's inactive truly this country for a classical car show and not conscionable support this inevitable drift towards newer and newer cars.”

The drift to newer and newer cars tin beryllium seen successful auction results, particularly this spring.

The preliminary totals for the outpouring play — which includes RM Sotheby’s past week and Gooding & Company and Hagerty’s ain Broad Arrow this play — deed $190.3 cardinal crossed the 3 auctions, up from $183.8 cardinal a twelvemonth ago. But the cars that person traditionally brought successful the large bucks, similar the Amelia-winning Alfa and different highly prized Ferraris, are seeing softness successful the market.

In their place, Porsche sports cars from the 70s and up, newer Mercedes AMG vehicles, and adjacent Japanese sports cars from the 80s and 90s are seeing higher sales.

For Hagerty, this modulation successful the classical car marketplace is an opportunity.

That's due to the fact that the company's security concern has each the information from penning policies for classical cars, arsenic good arsenic from its comparatively caller auction concern acquisition. That tin assistance clients modulation retired of cars that whitethorn not beryllium getting accepted values these days to different much desirable autos.

Hagerty tin besides usage that information for newer collectors looking to get into the classical car game.

“What is the intelligence precocious crushed successful your industry? Who has it? When you think, you deliberation Bloomberg, close [in finance]? They ain the information for radical who are nonrecreational traders with the Bloomberg terminals. It's a information institution underneath the media side,” helium said.