Have People Finally Stopped Flipping Collector Cars?

The practice of flipping collector vehicles—selling them in a short period of time in hopes of making a profit—riles up a lot of people in this hobby. Rightfully so: Monetizing something that people are passionate about can take the hobby out of reach for some.

To be clear, flipping cars isn’t always a bad thing—there are plenty of scenarios where diligent, handy enthusiasts turn a wrench on a car that’s been parked for ages, get it back on the road, and move on to the next project. In contrast, it’s those who play the market in an effort to make a quick buck without actually improving the vehicle who tend to draw people’s ire. Either way, though, when the market’s hot, more people try their hand at the flipping game. Now that the market has had a lengthy cooling period, however, the practice is showing signs of slowing. Let’s take a look at the data.

Close to two years of massive valuation increases across collector cars, an online auction marketplace that saw hockey stick-style growth, and consistent dealer markups have all worked to motivate flips even after the first signs that the market was slowing down. Observing public auction sales and re-sales, the Hagerty valuation team counted how many vehicles were publicly flipped within one year according to the year the flip was concluded, which was enough for a representative sample. The amount of flips a little more than doubled from 2019 to 2023, but the rate at which the practice has grown has throttled back dramatically in the last year.

The most obvious conclusion is that opportunism is not nearly as strong in the collector car market as it was just a year or even six months ago. That said, public sale flips did ever so slightly increase as a percentage of the market from 2023 to 2024, so there’s still sentiment in the hobby that quick turns may be viable. The other notable point is that it took three years for flips to double their market share, and since that share appears to lag market behavior, it will take time for this behavior to return to its prior level. At the rate this activity slowed, it would not be surprising to look back and 2025’s data and see this chart retracing its steps.

What does this mean for the average enthusiast? Speculation hasn’t left the market, but it’s no longer driving the market. Buyers have more control now, and it’s important for those who are thinking about picking up a collector vehicle to recognize that going into a purchase.