Anglia Car Auctions - Porsche 968 31st January

[smith94]

Went to Anglia's car auction today to have a poke around and was quite taken back by a frankly crazy price for this car:

Porsche 968

The car was in good condition. Body work was very good, interior was a little scruffy.

Low mileage car.

Japanese import car with no sunroof.

Barely any history, just one invoice for a full service last year and then a couple of MOTs.

On start up the car was pretty whiney and then there was a monumental screech from the belts whilst pulling off.

To add to this the chap driving it into the auction room closed the door and the wing mirror fell off...

I was expecting the lower end of its estimate (£5000-5500). However within a minute the car sold for £9000!

After buyers premium this would be more like £9500.

The bidding also went up in thousand pound intervals. I couldn't explain why.

I doubt it could have been a trader as this price is well above market value.

For that money I'd expect to walk into a dealer and find an immaculate example - this was far from it.

Any ideas to why this car went for so much?

[Jasandjules]

smith94 said:

Any ideas to why this car went for so much?

Auction fever?.

[smith94]

Nope.

Bidding was as follows.

Commission: 5500

6000
6500
7000
8000
9000
Hammer.

Probably lasted 45 seconds.

If someone really wanted a nice tiptronic 968 they could have gone to dealer and got something way better than that with peace of mind (to a point) too.

[smith94]

It wasn't as if two were battling it out.

Just huge prices and huge intervals.

All the other lots went through at fairly competitive money with perhaps £100 intervals.

I couldn't make sense of it.

Edited by smith94 on Saturday 31st January 19:55

[The Turbonator]

Could it have been because Japan don't use salt to grit their roads, so most imports are very clean underneath, solid and rust free?

[smith94]

Fair enough but £9k?

Have a look around at the classifieds and that price is unjustifiable.

The bolster was very worn on the drivers seat too.

Lets say it was a trader who bought it.

Costed out:

£9000 hammer

£450 premium

£200 Service

£200 Upholstery work

£200 Optimistic Fettling (mirror and little engine pieces)

So the car itself is probably £10,150

After paying VAT on your margin and covering costs of running as a trader (premises, insurance etc) you'll probably have to have it up for £12-12.5k before you make any sort of decent money on it.

Who's going to buy a slightly ropey 968 Tiptronic with a km/h speedo and no history for £12,500 when you could get a tidy 968 Sport Manual with cash to spare?

Madness.