6:22 am, July 24, 2012
DEMAND remains strong for upper executive, sports and luxury cars, says auction firm BCA.
Buyers are said to be continuing to support the company’s programme of Top Car and Executive sales, with BCA selling 8,356 cars valued in excess of £20k – worth a combined £231.4m – in the first half of this year.
Across the board, BCA has averaged 102.57 per cent of CAP Clean for cars sold for £20k or more in 2012.
The highest value vehicle sold this year to date – a Bentley Continental GTC W12 Supersports that realised £129,500 – achieved more than 103.5 per cent of CAP Clean.
Top Car sales are staged regularly at BCA Blackbushe and Nottingham, with executive car sales taking place throughout the BCA network, and 91 per cent of cars valued £20k and over sell the first time they are offered.
BCA’s communications director, Tony Gannon, said: ‘Successfully remarketing luxury prestige and sports cars calls for a different approach than when dealing with ‘bread and butter’ fleet cars.
‘Because of the additional activity required, it is worth consigning cars for sale early to give your remarketing partner time to get the message across to the buyers.
‘Few can afford to spend upwards of £20,000 on a whim, and with such specialist high value vehicles, the pre-sale marketing is critical. BCA uses both online and traditional media to attract the right mix of buyers for these high value prestige car sales – specialised trade buyers and the all-important non-trade – typically small business owners or self-employed professional people, who want their own prestige ‘company car’ and can benefit from buying in an offset tax position.
‘It is a peculiarity of the economic downturn that demand for high value cars has remained on a high over the past two years. Despite the difficult economic conditions, the market for high value prestige vehicles is exceptionally buoyant, with buyers prepared to invest six-figure sums for the right vehicle.
‘It could be that some well-heeled buyers are simply deciding that their money might as well be put to good use on a prestige car rather than languishing in a savings account that is paying very little interest.’
