Auction Stats 
There’s no other way to say it – January 2022 was off the charts! And when we talk about January in the collector car world, we talk about Scottsdale. The whopping $249.7M sold at auction during the auctions in Scottsdale last week represented the highest amount sold at the event in the past 6 years.
2,006 cars were sold in total, fetching $250M with an average sale price of $125K. This was an increase of 65% over the total dollar volume fetched for the same events in 2021 and 18% over 2020. Interestingly, the number of cars sold vs 2021 also increased by a similar amount (64%), but was reduced vs 2020 (roughly 1%), absolutely in line with the same strong market trends we saw throughout most of 2021. In fact, the average sale price for 2022 increased only 0.4% over 2021, but represented an increase of 19% over 2020 – keep in mind that the Scottsdale 2020 events took place before the pandemic started. Looking at these numbers, there is no doubt that the market is back, and it’s hot!
For official results, please check each auction website.
Scottsdale over the years
Barrett-Jackson knocked it out of the park with $179M in sales from 1,740 listings that we tracked, followed by RM Sotheby's with $43M from 65 amazing sales. These were followed by $28M of sales from 201 cars that sold at the Bonhams, Gooding and Worldwide events all together.
In terms of average sale prices, RM achieved an incredible $674K per sale. Even taking out the 300SL sold for $6.8 million, RM's average was still a whopping $550K. That was followed by Bonhams and Gooding at $140K and $139K respectively. Not far behind are Worldwide with $134K and finally Barrett-Jackson with an incredible $108K average sale per listing. It’s also interesting to look back at 2017, the Scottsdale average price was at $125K, with Gooding, RM and Bonhams all above the $300K mark. Worldwide was closer to $200K and all of the events with the exception of Barrett-Jackson had more cars, especially RM and Gooding, which more than doubled the number of cars they sold 5 years ago.
Over those 5 years, the average prices for Scottsdale decreased until 2020 when it hit $104K. Nevertheless, the number of listings increased 16% in those three years, while the sell-through rate was slightly declining, falling from an average 96.4% aggregating all of Scottsdale, and coming down to the current 90%.
Scottsdale 2022: Top Performing Markets
Now that we’ve looked at Scottsdale from a macro level, let’s break down the top performing markets this year. To gather this short list, we’ve compared prices from Scottsdale to sales performance in 2021 and removed any outliers from custom and celebrity-owned vehicles.
Mercedes-Benz 350SL - R107
Just last year, R107 350SLs were selling for $16-20K. At Gooding Scottsdale, this low mileage, highly-original (44,000 mi) example sold for $109K. While it's an outlier, this sale shows the strength of “ordinary” European sports cars in this market. In the past 5 years, 69 sales averaged $18K, with the highest sale of $42K in April 2021. This one almost tripled that amount!
Jaguar E-Type Series II
A well-restored Jaguar E-Type Series II offered by RM Sotheby’s in Scottsdale proved once again that live auctions can be the ground for very strong prices, especially in today’s market. This 1969 Series II Roadster sold for $190K, well above the CMB* of $68K. A very special restoration, this marks the second-ever highest sale for Series II E-Types.
Mercedes-Benz 500 SL - R129
Luxury-coupes of the 90’s and 2000’s are hot hot hot – and the R129 500SL is a great example of that category: incredibly well built, near 30-year-old machines with huge spikes in demand and value. Four sold at Barrett-Jackson at an average of $42K, well above the average 2021 sale price of $18K. That’s more than double!
Mercedes-Benz 300 SL - Gullwing
The iconic Gullwing saw 3 sales in Scottsdale 2022, most importantly its highest sale ever: $6.3M for an alloy-bodied Gullwing at RM Sotheby’s. And the other two that crossed the block in Scottsdale sold for an average of $1.7M, well above the 2021 average sale price of $1.3M. One of our Market Busters of 2021, it appears that these iconic German sports cars will keep climbing in value.
Porsche 911 Turbo S - 993
Two 993 Turbo S sold in Scottsdale, one Silver for $600K at RM Sotheby's and one Black for $467K at Bonhams. Both are highly original cars with 14K miles on them. Also featured in our 2021 Market Busters List, these two sales kept pushing this market up, as both of them were almost 50% over the average 2021 sale price and 35% above the benchmark value for the market.
* The CLASSIC.COM Market Benchmark (CMB) represents a benchmark value for vehicles in a market based on data accumulated by CLASSIC.COM, calculated by our proprietary algorithm. Actual market value for a specific vehicle will depend on various elements, including the condition of the vehicle.
