Supercar sales pre-covid vs today

[PompeyReece]

I regularly watch the market for potential next purchases and thought I'd post some comparison figures of the number of cars for sale pre-lockdown vs today on Autotrader.

Model - no. for sale w/c 23rd March vs no for sale w/c 15th June 2020 - % change

- Audi R8 V10 gen 1 coupe (all) - 38 vs 30 - down 21%
- Audi R8 V10 gen 1 coupe (manual) - 6 vs 1 - down 83%
- Audi R8 V10 gen 1 coupe (automatic) - 32 vs 29 - down 9%

- Audi R8 V8 gen 1 coupe (all) - 75 vs 53 - down 29%
- Audi R8 V8 gen 1 coupe (manual) - 34 vs 19 - down 44%
- Audi R8 V8 gen 1 coupe (automatic) - 41 vs 34 - down 17%

- Audi R8 V10 gen 2 (all) - 96 vs 90 - down 6%

- Lamborghini Huracan coupe - 101 vs 83 - down 18%
- Lamborghini Huracan Performante coupe - 20 vs 17 - down 15%

- McLaren 540C coupe - 16 vs 14 - down 13%
- McLaren 570S coupe - 45 vs 25 - down 44%
- McLaren 570S spyder - 26 vs 22 - down 15%
- McLaren 720S coupe - 58 vs 39 - down 33%

In all cases there has been a decline but some more than others especially the 570S and the R8 manuals compared to the R-tronic/S-tronic models

[PompeyReece]

Larry5.2 said:

Would your snapshot be true for all or most of the supercar market? McLarens and Huracans were on a downward spiral before Covid. Don't know about R8s as I haven't been watching them. I know a few independent supercar showrooms that say they've never been busier, which indicates high demand and possibly price?

Re: for all supercars yes that's likely to be the case (although I've no data to back that up!) but the post was intended to highlight to % drop vs other models.

However I do have pre-Covid figures for the cars originally listed and they don't seem to support the downward spiral suggestion. Considering all 4 McLaren's at the start of 2020 (not at lockdown as per the original post), there were 110 available now there are 100. Huracan's - 113 available, 100 now. Advertised prices have declined as you would expect but they certainly haven't dived.

Audi R8's have seen a huge decline in availability across the gen 1 range - generally over the last few years there has always been 80/90 V8's available, this is now down to 53 with the manual availability tanking. Same with the gen 1 V10 manuals - only 1 available but over the last two years, always at least 10 available - now you can't buy one unless you want it in white!

Whether this is due to high sales or low volume of advertising as sellers think it's a bad time to sell I don't know but will be interesting to see how things pan out over the coming months too.

[PompeyReece]

PrancingHorses said:

Where is Ferrari on this list?

A marque I'm not currently interest in purchasing so I don't record the stats. Sorry :-)

[PompeyReece]

Mmmm, I wonder:

No one selling because they think the bottom has fallen out of the car market

+

People buying because they have spare cash from not going on holidays etc.

=

Tom Hartley (and others) says that he’s never found it harder to buy cars?

[PompeyReece]

sparta6 said:

+1
Especially people living in the cities who are saving £000's each month not hitting the restaurants etc

Edited by sparta6 on Tuesday 16th June 10:14

The thing is if the ads are there on Autotrader, sellers have already paid for the listings - so are they more likely to remove them when not sold and lose the listing money because they think the market's crashed? Or keep them up and see if they sell?

My feeling's the latter which leans the data towards cars are selling, not sellers aren't selling.

[PompeyReece]

cgt2 said:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-8...

Thanks for posting. More evidence the super and sports car market is far from on its knees. Backs up the Autotrader figures too.

[PompeyReece]

drcarrera said:

I'm obviously being naive here but these loans are to companies, not individuals, so how can they be used to buy supercars? I know a company could technically buy a supercar as a company car but surely the benefit in kind to the individual who drove it would be astronomical?

Not buying company cars - being used for larger deposits to reduce loans/monthly payments on the outstanding balance or afford more expensive cars normally out of financial reach.

[PompeyReece]

Juno said:

And it’s been there for best part of a year

...at that price? I can't recall seeing it for sale for a year at £600k?

[PompeyReece]

GT4RS said:

Or it’s due to the kick in ball bids dealers are making, this means people aren’t selling and dealers can’t get used stock.

Yeah, I thought that - then in mid June, I checked how many new R8 ads had appeared and counted around 20 yet the number available had dropped.

So it seems to me they are selling....