A (SURPRISINGLY) STRONG END TO 2025
(credit: Cars & Bids “Doug’s Market Report Q4 2025” by Doug DeMuro)
One of my favorite sayings is that economists have predicted eight out of the last five recessions. It’s a good one, and it serves as a reminder that it’s hard to predict the future in the financial world — and that someone’s always forecasting doom and gloom, either for attention or to be able to forever tout their supposed prognostication abilities, should the “predicted” crash ever actually come.
That phrase certainly seems applicable to the automotive market right now. For months now — even years — we’ve been warned of an impending recession; a market crash that will wipe out stock gains, kill the economy, and destroy businesses. It hasn’t happened, and our results on Cars & Bids certainly prove it. I’ve been especially surprised by the strength of the market in the fourth quarter, which is normally a time when we see a big slowdown — not because of the economy, but due to winter, when many car enthusiasts in northern climates stash away their vehicles and put the hobby on hold until the weather warms up. Not this winter! In fact, this year, our results have shown the exact opposite — pointing to a strong economy, but also a healthy marketplace on Cars & Bids.
Probably our most-discussed result this fall has been the Jet Green 2014 Porsche Cayenne with a 6-speed manual transmission that sold for $125,500 back in September. This was seen as an absolutely crazy outlier until we auctioned another one in December, and it sold for an impressive $70,000. After that, yet a third Jet Green manual Cayenne appeared on Cars & Bids, and it brought $40,000. While the market trend here is clear, all three of these results point to a tremendously strong market for rare, desirable cars. A similar Cayenne with an automatic transmission sells for around $10,000 – and whether it’s $40,000, or $70,000, or $125,000, each auction result for the manual versions proves that people with money are still willing to spend it — and lots of it — on something rare, desirable, and hard to find. My feeling is that you wouldn’t see that in a recession.
Many other recent Cars & Bids auction results indicate a similar trend. I was surprised back in early November when we auctioned a 1993 Ferrari 512TR with an amazing 74,000 miles for a hefty $195,000. For years, Testarossa-based Ferrari models have languished at surprisingly low values relative to their cool factor and exciting design. But now, enthusiast interest is increasing for these cars — and while the 512TR has always been a desired, late-production, low-volume variant, such a good result for such a high-mileage car really underscores just how much money remains in the collectible car market, ready to pounce when the right car appears.
We saw the same thing when our friend (and occasional Cars & Bids content collaborator) Crazy Nick auctioned off his 2006 Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster, which featured a gated 6-speed manual transmission conversion. This car brought an impressive $290,000, which was an especially strong value considering it was something of an unknown: no other manual-converted Murcielago models had come to public auction since several companies had recently mastered the conversion process. Nick took a risk by selling the car on Cars & Bids when he had several significant private offers, and the results speak for themselves: again, big money is ready and waiting for great examples of great cars.
I could list a lot more of these, as we’ve seen great results this quarter on everything from Mercedes-Benz Sprinter camper conversions to late-production R35 Nissan GT-R models — but you get the point. The car market — especially for rare, desirable enthusiast cars, like the ones that make up the bulk of our sales on Cars & Bids — remains a lot more resilient than many “experts” predicted.
Of course, a recession is always a possibility, and in fact a certainty, as the market can’t keep booming forever. But while the economists might tell you it’s coming tomorrow, making such predictions is a lot easier than actually getting them right. And if you’re sitting on the sidelines waiting for the market to fall so you can buy your dream car, it seems like the opposite is happening in today’s strong market.