The collector car market continued to lose momentum heading into summer, although the most valuable cars remain considerably stronger than the broader market.
Hagerty’s latest Market Rating slipped 0.08 points in June to 58.59, its lowest reading of the second quarter. The decline was small, but it continued a longer period of weakening following the buying frenzy and rapidly rising prices that characterized the collector market earlier this decade.
The results do not suggest the entire collector car market is collapsing. Instead, Hagerty’s data shows an increasingly divided market, with expensive, investment-grade automobiles performing much better than the collector cars most enthusiasts are likely to own.
Hagerty’s stock-market-style Market Index actually increased 0.33 points to 172.5, its third consecutive monthly gain. That index is heavily influenced by vehicle values, particularly at the upper end of the market, while the broader Market Rating also considers activity such as auctions, private transactions and changes in insured values.
Auction activity increased during the latest reporting period because more cars changed hands. However, inflation-adjusted auction prices continued to weaken. Hagerty’s Auction Median Sale Price component dropped to a record-low reading even though the underlying median price before adjusting for inflation reached its highest level in six months. In other words, cars may be selling for more dollars, but those dollars do not buy what they once did.
The private market was noticeably softer. Hagerty’s private-sales activity measurement declined 0.43 points to 61.3, its lowest level in more than five years. The average private-sale price fell to $25,394 before inflation adjustments, the lowest dollar amount recorded in 14 months.
There was one potentially encouraging sign for sellers. Hagerty reported that 35.43% of privately sold vehicles brought more than their insured values, the highest percentage in six months. However, Hagerty said that improvement may partly reflect insured values rising more slowly rather than a sudden increase in selling prices.
Changes made by Hagerty insurance customers tell a similar story. Among cars insured for less than $250,000, the ratio of customers increasing their insured values compared with those lowering them fell to its lowest level in five years. Even so, owners were still 5.7 times more likely to raise a vehicle’s insured value than reduce it.
The pattern was different for vehicles valued above $250,000. The ratio of insured-value increases to decreases has risen for five consecutive months and is now at its highest level since late 2024. That suggests confidence remains much stronger among owners and buyers of the rarest and most expensive automobiles.
The widening gap is also visible in Hagerty’s valuation indexes. The Blue Chip Index, which follows some of the most desirable postwar collector cars, stands at 75.54. The Hagerty Hundred, representing a much broader group of commonly insured collector vehicles, has fallen to 48.32.
That is a 27.22-point difference between the two indexes. Hagerty noted that the indexes were separated by only a few points four years ago, illustrating how dramatically the top of the market has pulled away from more affordable collector cars.
The next major test will come during the Monterey auctions in August, where many of the world’s wealthiest collectors compete for rare and historically important automobiles. Those results should provide a clearer indication of whether the high-end market can continue resisting the weakness seen elsewhere.
For the broader collector market, Hagerty sees continued uncertainty, particularly as the industry approaches the traditionally slower fall selling season. Buyers remain active, but they are becoming more selective, while sellers may have to adjust expectations that were formed when practically everything interesting seemed to increase in value.
The collector car market is not disappearing. It is simply becoming two very different markets: one for exceptional automobiles that wealthy collectors still aggressively pursue, and another for everything else.