Where do dealers buy their sports cars from

[jimPH]

Looking for a hot hatch and there are quite a few independent sports car dealers with stock, as a cash buyer, I'm wondering where they all get their cars?

Would cut out the middle man so to speak as the cars I'm looking at have factory warranty anyway.

One place had a car with less than a thousand miles on, so minus his markup, there's better deals out there for cash buyers like myself!

Is there a trade site?

[DaveyBoyWonder]

Most/all goes through auctions doesn't it?

[2 GKC]

Part ex, auctions, main dealers part-exs too

[b19rak]

I always join Facebook groups and forums specific to the model you want and find out if anyone is selling. Usually have good straight cars at less then retail prices.

[jimPH]

Any particular auctions. Not much on BCA.

[Trevor555]

Auctions. Although prices for nice stuff has been sky high for ages.

Trade buying platforms like wizzle, and some trade to trade only ones.

Specialist traders are constantly scouring autotrader/Ebay adverts for the stock they want. They are quick on the ball so you'll have to be fast to beat them for correctly priced cars.

You could try a wanted advert OP, they've worked for me in the past.

[jonwm]

It always amazes me how much money these small car lots have sometimes, there is one by me and it must have 50 cars on it ranging from £5k to £80k, where do you get the money to but that much stock!

[ChrisDT]

When I used to buy for a Sports car company a lot were previous cars we sold, others were from Autotrader private sales, some were PX's taken in by known contacts. we never bought from Auction.

[bbob]

As Trevor555 says they are always going through the private ads and will jump into their car transporter at a moment's notice. No messing around with emails asking for further information or waiting until the end of the working day to have time to enquire. The adverts disappear before average joe even gets a look in! If you see something you like you need to jump on it in my experience.

[jimPH]

I know they scour private adverts and then lowball the seller, but they can't surely aquire the volumes they do using that approach. There's a few performance car specialists I've been too and they all have plenty of stock.

I went to a premium car auction and nothing was going that cheap either!

[cuprabob]

jonwm said:

It always amazes me how much money these small car lots have sometimes, there is one by me and it must have 50 cars on it ranging from £5k to £80k, where do you get the money to but that much stock!

Probably stocking finance.

[93DW]

Don't forget if you do buy from an auction that as a member of the public the buyers fee of a £15k car will be c.£1250 whereas for a trader who buys 100+ cars per year from that auction house the fees will be around £300 for £15k.

[AlexNJ89]

The good ones have close relationships with main dealers and buy their best part-ex's.

The bad ones just go to auctions to pick up the rejects.

[Trevor555]

AlexNJ89 said:

The good ones have close relationships with main dealers and buy their best part-ex's.

The bad ones just go to auctions to pick up the rejects.

That may have been somewhere close to the truth many years ago, but not nowadays.

Most main dealers have stopped dealing with underwriters, and other dealers, and now send their stock to the auctions.

Their stock goes into their own sections in the auction, and they make good money.

So much easier than dealing with traders moaning all the time.

I've been on both sides of the fence, having worked in main dealers in disposal, and having been a buyer for many years.

There's a very good underwriter around my way, he's been around for years, he's very well known, and trusted.

But he's no longer able to buy stock like he used to from main dealers, hasn't been able to for a while.

I agree there's plenty of rejects at the auctions. You have to get to know the sections to buy from, otherwise you could end up with a right mess of a car.

But there's plenty of genuine ones too.

[boxxer7]

a few years ago i put up my skoda octavia vrs on Autotrader, most of the calls I had were from dealers looking for stock.

All of the offers were for way less than the asking price and a week or so later it sold for the full price.

I also sold a golf R to a dealer about a year or so before but that was via Tootle but i believe that's gone now.

[V8 Bob]

Most funded in stock finance as previous reply. Banks or finance houses loan a percentage if stock valuation, ratio depends on total assets. Most supply a weekly stock list and valuation to lenders. High end dealer I know ie cars at £100k + pays of the sales proceeds when he sells a car and gets his % back immediately. Allows founder to monitor stock, the valuations versus realisations etc.

Most specialist dealers are well known in the trade and advertising in specialist magazines/websites. Offer quick decisions and instant cash and collection with no comeback. The dealer I know also revolves a lot of stock ie sells it then buys back in 18 months when owner wants to change or upgrade most of his stock are garage queens doing very low mileage and with pampered service history.