Overhaulin'

What is the best way to get top dollar for a classic car?

I have a restored 1971 240-Z in my garage. There is easily over $25k invested into this car over the years, I don't expect to get all that back if I sell it, but I don't want to give it away either. How can I get top dollar for my car?

Public Comments

1. Once you've decided to sell, and have a price in mind, the next and biggest hurdle to cross is where to advertise the thing. Traditionally, the best way has been to list the car as a photo-advertisement in one of the many historic car magazines that are around nowadays, although the lead time from submitting the advert to it actually getting printed could be a month or two, so you need to plan ahead. Another established way of selling on your machine is to enter it into a car auction, ideal if you want to shift the car on in a hurry although not the best place to get the best price necessarily, as many people (including traders) attend the auctions to get a bit of a bargain themselves. Also the thing to remember with auction sales is the auction house commission. Sometime its a buyers commission, whereby the successful bidder for your car will pay an additional sum to the auction house, whereas other companies operate a sellers commission, whereby its down to you to pay a set percentage, assuming your car sells and meets its reserve (ie the minimum price that you'd be willing to sell the car for) if you've set one. Internet auction site, such as ebay for instance (probably the leading online auction site at the moment, take a quick look ), be sure to explain the car and its good & bad points in great detail as the more comprehensive and honest the description is, the better chance you have of giving someone the confidence to bid on your car unseen. Same goes for images, ensure that you have a good selection of clear digital photos to hand that you can upload to the web so that people can have a virtual look around of your motor.
2. We can not see this car that you are talking about and have no idea as to its value. I would suggest that you take a bunch of photos of this car and then post it for sale on E-bay. This may not appeal to you but remember that even on e-bay you can set a a reserve price for the car and most often if it is a real nice car you can get more for it than if you just listed it in a news paper a few years ago I had a BMW that I wanted to sell the most I could get for it was about $6200 around here but the car was listed (reserve)for $7600 sold it for $9600. Or you can as the other has suggested and shop the car around to several different auctions. I might keep that as a back up plan but taken a few photos to post on e-bay and and trying to sell it there might even be faster. Also remember that you can use a 7 day sale time and you can also use buy now as well.
3. whenever you are ready to sell your car, list it on this site for FREE http://autoferret.net/selling.php?said=2226 your car is listed on Google cars, it will stay listed until it sells, you can upload 20 photos... and they will match you to a buyer in your area all for FREE !