6:41 am, October 15, 2022
Unlike you lot, I don’t find selling cars very easy. I get too emotionally attached to them, which is why I built up a (small) collection of old hot hatches over the years.
At one stage I had this Fiesta XR2, a Peugeot 205 GTI 1.9 and more recently a Citroen Saxo VTS – the latter two have now gone.
They were kept for years in a cavernous lock-up on a high security military base collecting dust, mostly because I never had time to drive them and whenever I did fancy taking them for a spin they usually wouldn’t work. Or needed an MOT. Or had a flat tyre. Or the insurance had run out. Or… well, you get the picture.
Unfortunately for the junk that has piled up in the lock-up, I’ve been served notice on the tenancy.
The landlords probably realised that charging someone £100 a month for a cave I’d managed to cram enough junk to fill a thousand charity shops wasn’t particularly good for business.
Whatever their reason for kicking me out, it has meant I’ve had to have a serious look at what I want to keep.
Over the last few months I’ve been filling the local dump with all manner of rubbish and slowly selling the cars.
First to go was the Peugeot 205 GTI. I’d had that for nearly a decade and couldn’t bring myself to part with it after lovingly watching someone else restore it for me. But it had to go.
The car was immaculate and found a new owner on Collecting Cars – one of the new online firms that is shaking up the market when it comes to auctions.
I was very impressed with the whole process and the buyer was a fantastic chap. He paid immediately and when he picked it up I could tell he was clearly delighted with finally owning a classic French hot hatch.
He still sends me pictures now of the old girl.
As painful as the process was selling it off, I haven’t missed it quite as much as I thought I would, so when it came to shifting the Ford I thought I’d be a little more prepared.
I wasn’t. And, in actual fact, I still am not today.
You see the XR2 and I have a bit more of a connection than the other hot hatches.
Back when I was a sprightly young teenager, my older brother ran a used car dealership in Portsmouth. Every weekend I’d head over there and hang around – help out with a few bits and bobs, generally get in the way, that sort of thing.
It’s part of the reason I started Car Dealer, actually. My dad worked as a car salesman in London for HR Owen a long time ago too, so the motor trade was sort of in the blood.
Anyway, one Saturday I popped over to the car site and my brother had a red Fiesta XR2 in stock. This was about 1998, so it was at least 15 years old by then and was up for sale for £1,500.
It might as well have been a Ferrari. I was instantly in love. The bulging black bumpers, the spotlights, the pepperpot alloys – it was enough to make me want to work double shifts at Burger King to pay for it.
I pleaded with my brother to let me have a go and only when I promised to bring back a McDonald’s lunch, did he relent and threw me the keys.
To a just-passed teenager the 1.6-litre Fiesta was a revelation. The noise the CVH engine made, the throaty change in exhaust note as it climbed the rev range and the throw-around handling. I had to have it.
A swift loan from the bank of mum and dad later and I’d bought it from my brother. It was painfully expensive to run and insure, but was a dream to own.
And not a bad first car either. Ok, in all honesty my first car was an Alfa Romeo Arna (look it up) but it rusted to pieces before I took my test so it doesn’t really count.
Fast forward a year or so and I got my first job as a reporter at the Dorking & Leatherhead Advertisers and the pitiful wage they paid me meant I had to get rid of the car.
It was either that or live in the back seats, and trust me I contemplated the latter.
My brother, ever the car dealer, said he’d sort the problem out and one weekend he drove up to my flat in Redhill with a replacement – a D-reg 1.1-litre, four-speed Popular Plus.
Swap
He did me a straight swap (I’m sure he got the better deal) and as I watched my pride and joy drive down the hill I was left staring at a grey Fiesta with white hub caps. I was distraught.
Ok, so the replacement saved me a ton in fuel, and was probably the sensible choice, but the pain of watching that XR2 drive away cut very deep indeed.
So much so that 12 years later, when I had a bit more disposable cash, I went on the hunt and bought myself another.
It was exactly the same colour and a few years newer – E721 WTU has been mine ever since.
I bought the car back in 2012 and have occasionally got it out for a reminiscent jaunt to a car park-based burger bar.
In recent years, those jaunts have become less frequent and when the lock-up termination email arrived I realised it was time for it to go.
Which brings me to today, and the listing on CarandClassic.co.uk.
Tom Wood, CEO of the website, offered to host the auction for me and the car is currently up for sale with a reserve of £4,000.
I must say I’ve been impressed with the listing process but, full disclosure, they have offered to sell it for me for free.
Usually the firm charges a seller’s fee of a minimum £500 for cars up to £10k. Over £10k it’s five per cent of the sale price.
You pay £200 for a photographer to take professional pictures and a journalist to write the listing for you. I asked one of my colleagues to take these pictures, but they’d be just like these.
You have to fill in some details on an online form before the sale and the writers then use these to produce the listing for you.
The Car and Classic auction differs from other sites by holding the money in Escrow until both the buyer and seller confirm the handover of the car has taken place.
The firm also says its auction listings get 13 times more views than its classified adverts, so there’s more chance people will see it.
Boss Tom Wood featured on the Car Dealer Podcast a couple of weeks ago and explained that the site is now hosting around 700 auctions a month.
‘It’s gone crazy,’ he said. ‘But the difference with our business is we have a huge pool to fish in with 35,000 classified already on the site.
‘One of the things that the online platforms don’t do very well is they don’t really deal with the money very well.
‘They don’t take the buyer’s money, make sure the buyer is on the hook to transact on that car, and then make sure that transaction goes through safely.
‘We do that as the buyer has to pay their funds to us and we send all those funds out when both parties are happy. That’s an important part of disrupting the physical classic car auction.’
You can listen to what Tom has to say in the episode below or on all good Podcast platforms.
The Car and Classic website has a huge following and receives four million visitors a month – and to ensure your auction gets seen it actively promotes it to its huge database of followers.
It’s a pretty slick process, and I liked the fact I had direct contact with the writer of the listing to help suggest the odd tweak.
The car went live on October 12 and runs for seven days. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.
Honestly, though, I still can’t quite believe I’m parting with it.
It’s been a part of my life for over a decade and while it may have a few blemishes here and there – what classic doesn’t? – sending it off to a new home is going to be tough.
Even looking at the pictures here, and thinking it will soon be driving away, makes me rather sad. I just hope the next owner manages to enjoy it as much as I have. And MOTs it a bit more regularly…
