Between Covid-19, Brexit and the battle between Biden and Trump, it’s fair to say that 2020 has been a crazy year. Yet despite the chaos, which seriously threatened our hobby and thwarted virtually every major event, the interest in classic cars is every bit as strong as it was before the world turned upside down.Passion has well and truly prevailed, which goes to show that unlike stocks and shares or gold, the car market goes so much deeper than supply and demand. I often say that the market has returned to its happy place after the spike of 2014–2016, and the current picture certainly reiterates that.

For sure there’s been a clear shift in what’s hot and what’s not – ‘garden variety’ road cars from the 1950s and ’60s are no longer the hot commodity, for example, and interest has increased for 1970s and ’80s machinery as younger buyers become older and wealthier. The really special and ultra-rare remains in strong demand and, this year, we’ve sold several high-ticket cars including a Jaguar E-type Lightweight and a Ferrari 275 GTB/C. The same can be said of competition cars. In fact, racing cars with great provenance are, in my opinion, more popular than they’ve ever been. There’s an insatiable appetite for history and the key questions for buyers now are ‘What did it do?’ and ‘What can I do with it?’ as a result. Looking forward into the new year, I’m expecting the same positivity and buoyancy, more so as life steadily returns back to normal. I think the initial panic re Brexit and what that means for the classic car market has subsided. Yes, it’s going to be more complicated to import a car from Europe and the market may change a little, but, so far, it’s not affected us as much as I thought it would. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen moving forward, so we’ll just keep calm and carry on!Photos: Tom Shaxson