FERRARI THAT SOLD FOR $200K | INSIDE COLLECTOR CAR CANADA!

🔥I sat down with Dave Case — the founder of CollectorCarCanada — to find out what happens when a lifelong car person gets frustrated enough with the status quo to build his own alternative.

The short version: Dave sold a Porsche 996 on Bring a Trailer. The winning bidder lived seven kilometres from his house. The buyer paid a 5% premium on top of the sale price — straight to BaT. In American dollars. That moment is why CollectorCarCanada exists.

CollectorCarCanada charges zero commission to sellers. Buyers deal in Canadian dollars with no cross-border friction. All bidders are pre-authenticated. This is the honest inside story.

🔗 CollectorCarCanada: https://collectorcarcanada.ca

🎥 Watch This Next: https://youtu.be/6WKoTPB0Ilg

LOVE THE GARY THE CAR NUT YOUTUBE CHANNEL AND WANT TO WATCH MORE FUN AND SOMETIMES EDUCATIONAL CONTENT ABOUT SPORTSCARS, HOT HATCHES AND SURVIVOR CARS?  HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS!
1) 💬LET’S CONNECT! 
facebook https://www.facebook.com/GaryTheCarNut/      
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@gary.the.car.nut       
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/garythecarnut/
X (Twitter) https://twitter.com/garythecarnut/
Performance Car Ownership with Gary Podcast: https://performancecarownershipwithgary.buzzsprout.com

2) CONTACT - 📧 BUSINESS INQUIRIES!
Gary@GaryTheCarNut.com

3) 🔔Subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/@GaryTheCarNut?sub_confirmation=1

4) My Favorite Podcasts are: "Cars & Money" and "Road to Success with Benedict Fowler"
#CollectorCarCanada #BringATrailer #CollectorCars #CarAuction #CanadianCars #PorscheForSale #ClassicCars #OnlineCarAuction #HonestOwnerReviews #CarBuying #CollectorCarMarket #PorscheCanada #CarSelling #ClassicCarAuction #PerformanceCars

About: I create fast, honest, and practical car detailing and car ownership videos for real enthusiasts who drive performance cars. If you’re looking for clear, step-by-step guides on how to detail, maintain, and protect your car—without the fluff, hype, or clickbait—you’re in the right place.
This channel focuses on premium car care and real-world ownership insights for vehicles like Porsche, Toyota GR, BMW M, Audi RS, Corvette, and other sports and performance cars. Every video is designed to save you time and give you the truth about what actually works.
If you want professional car detailing tips, real car ownership advice, and straight-to-the-point videos, subscribe and join thousands of enthusiasts who prefer results over hype.

Please comment or ask questions below.
📋 CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS 
0:00 — Previews
01:44 — Introducing Collector Car Canada Founder – David Case
07:02 — The BaT Sale That Changed Everything
07:29 — How CollectorCarCanada.ca Actually Works
10:12 – How Collector Car Canada differs from BaT
12:49 – Buying Opportunities for US Buyers
21:26 — How the Collector Car Online Auction Market Looks Like Right Now
27:52 — Seller Advice: How to Get Top Dollar
32:50 — Buyer Advice: What to Look For, What to Avoid
36:50 – Best Buy Right Now!
37:00 — Where CollectorCarCanada.ca Is Going
37:57 – Who Should Buy & Sell on CollectorCarCanada.ca?
38:48 – Dave’s Final Thoughts

*****Disclaimer*****
All Rights Reserved. Copyright, Liability Waiver and Disclaimers
No part of the content of this video or any video published under Gary the Car Nut, and other encompassed entities, shall be stored, copied, recreated, republished, or transported. Prior express written permission by Gary Beutler is required for any use of this video. The advice, guidance, and principles outlined in all content produced by Gary the Car Nut, Gary Beutler, and other encompassed entities are not guaranteed to be appropriate for your unique situation, you are responsible to do your own research, I’m not responsible for any losses you incur.
We recommend that as a consumer, you exercise your due diligence and research any and all products and events recommended to you before adopting them for yourself. Gary the Car Nut, Gary Beutler, and other encompassed entities are not responsible for any damages that result from an effort to implement the information provided in this or any other video, article, blog post, social media post, and related publications.
Your use and viewing of any materials and videos published by Gary the Car Nut, Gary Beutler and other encompassed entities confirms your acknowledgement and agreement that Ontario, Canada law will apply to any and all disputes related to the aforementioned entities and that Ontario, Canada will serve as the venue for any disputes, claims, and litigious activities related but not limited to the materials produced by Gary the Car Nut, Gary Beutler and other encompassed entities.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In the past winter, we sold a Ferrari 308, 86 Porsche 930, 61 Corvette Fueli, our six-figure car, and the most valuable car we've sold yet, a Ferrari Testerosa, an 87 Testerosa, which eclipsed $200,000. But if people do their homework, I think they're gonna find that uh there are a lot of buying opportunities north of the border.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Right now, in terms of performance car, what do you think would be a good buy in the $20,000 to $30,000 range?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

One car that I think well of, and it's actually lower priced than that. I think the original.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

So here's a question for you. You've got a car that you love, you've owned it for years, you know exactly what it's worth, and when the time comes to sell it, you do the right thing. You list it on the biggest platform you know. The one with the most eyeballs, the one everybody tells you to use, and the winning bidder lives five miles from your house. Really, five miles. Now, that's not the worst part. The worst part is what happened to the time and the money in between. Keep in mind we're talking about a platform that took 5% from the buyer on top of the sale price. A buyer who was practically in your neighborhood and paid American dollars to do it. That moment right there is what built Collector Car Canada.ca. So my guest today is David Case, the founder of Collector Car Canada, and he's gonna share the difference between Collector Car Canada and Bring a Trailer. Current market trends in online auctions, what's selling, what isn't, online auction advice for buyers and sellers, and I'm gonna let him tell you the full story of founding Collector Car Canada for himself. Because believe me, it's definitely worth hearing. Now, if you're thinking about buying or selling a performance car on an online auction anywhere, this video is for you. All right, so Dave, before we get into all that, give me the short version. How did you first get into performance cars?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I was always interested in cars from a very, very young age. And by the time I was old enough to buy magazines for myself, probably when at the age of 10 or 12, I started reading Car and Driver, Road and Track, Motor Trend, kind of cover to cover in the 80s. So walk me through your garage, like what you've had over the years in terms of performance cars. The one that got away, which I never expect to be talking, expected to be talking about 25 years later, is a 1991 Honda CRX SI Special Edition. It was my second CRX at the time at that time in my life. It was the perfect blend of performance and economy. I never expected to want one 25 years later in my 50s, but as you've heard, it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. Uh I mentioned earlier about reading the Car Mags of the 80s. Uh, they seemed to like Porsches a lot at that time, and I suppose they still do. So I always aspired to a Porsche. By the time I was in my mid-30s, I bought a 15-year-old Porsche that I still own today. Um, but I always had something practical but with a sporty edge to it. I traded that CRX in on the only new car I've ever bought, which is a 2000 Honda Prelude SH, which I thought was the Beesneys at the time. Still a respectable car, but not quite to the level of Porsche, of course.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Now it's pretty obvious from what you've just told me is that you know you're a real car guy. You're just not a businessman who happened to open Collector Car Canada. Um, you're a car guy uh through and through. And uh so what's in your garage now?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Well, I own five cars currently, Gary. I you could say each of the five are performers, maybe one, not as much, and that's a 1988 Jaguar XJ6 Sovereign. So that performs smoothly in a straight line on the highway, but it's not for burnouts, not that I'm a burnout person. Uh I own a 1989 Porsche 928 S4, which you know about and have had it for 22 years, I think I'm up to. I also have another Porsche which is very different. It's a 1973 Porsche 914, and that's something I bought from the friend of a high school, from the father of a high school friend. Uh I had my eye on, I like to say, for 25 years, and I finally got it about 16 years later. I also own a 1994 Chev Camaro Z28. Uh kind of cheap thrills on that one, fun straight line car. It's got the Corvette engine of the period. That's cool. I'm leaving out one, oh, the what I'm using as my daily this summer. It's a 2001 BMW 540i with the six speeds.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

But you previously owned a Porsche 996, right? It's true. And tell me tell me about uh selling that car or moving that car on.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Sure, sure. I really liked it, and all of a sudden I've got a tight parking situation living in a condo in downtown Toronto, and I decided to give bring a trailer.com a try. I'd been following it, I won't say religiously, but I I really liked the website and still do. I learned a lot from it. Uh, and I figured I'd do the smart thing, go after the market ten times the size of ours, and maybe get lucky on foreign exchange. When I did that, I had to wait quite a while for my auction to go live. But during the pandemic, of course, things were going nuts in in uh special cars, interesting cars. How long did you have to wait? I waited five weeks. That's a long time. Five weeks was quite a while. It was. Uh the car lasts seven days on their auction site. All of the action on it was within 150 or 200 kilometers of my home in southern Ontario. And then sure enough, it's sold to someone. I think you said five miles away. I think it was even closer. I think it was about three and a half miles.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Crazy, crazy. And what did it sell for?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

It sold, oh, it hurts to say. Uh, I think I know the exact number. I think it was 16,850 US dollars.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

And what do you think it was actually worth?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Oh, I want to say 20, which was the original reserve I proposed with Bring a Trailer. Uh, we went back and forth on the reserve and I ended up decreasing it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

And how much did you pay to sell it on Bring a Trailer?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

I don't remember exactly. I think I would have paid a listing fee in the $100 range. I'm not I I think that's their current uh fee. I'm not sure if it was back then or not.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah. And how much would have the buyer paid?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

The buyer would have paid five percent of that, I think it was $16,750. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

On top of the $16.750.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

So when did you have that aha moment that uh maybe uh Canada needed uh or you saw an opportunity to do uh something similar in Canada?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

And that auction closed when I was buying another car. I was in Saskatchewan in the garage of the seller of a 944 I picked up at a cut rate price out in Saskatchewan. And the two of us, I explained to him what was going on because he could tell I was distracted staring at my phone. Before long, he fired up the auction on his phone. We stood there looking at our phones as I was preparing to drive this 944 about what, uh almost 2,000 miles over the following three days. And uh I think he kind of felt sorry for me when he saw the price, the closing price. But uh at that point it was kind of a sunk cost. It was time to move on. So when you decided, yeah, I want to do this Collector Car Canada, who was the first person you told? I told a lady friend, but she's a business person herself. And uh at the time I ran a different business, and uh it did help to have a sounding board, especially someone who understands the the grind of running a business oneself.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

And were they positive, negative, or did they say you should do this or oh no, no holds part, super positive.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Get going. What are you waiting for?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

So the process I want to sell my car in Collector Car Canada, I go online and do what?

SPEAKER_00 7:34

And there's an online submission form. I think uh the title says sell your item. Uh you click on that. It's a little about you, a lot about the car. It takes about seven or eight minutes to complete. Uh a lot of it's the basis on which we prepare the written write-up, which are usually about six or eight hundred words. And they help us know what questions to ask the seller. And from there, when we get that within 24 hours, certainly, often within 24 minutes or 2.4 hours maybe, we're in touch with them either about setting up a shared drive for them to share their photos and videos if they have them ready, or about an appointment if they've off uh ordered that service through us.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

What's the most common mistake or what's the most common um concern people have right from the very beginning? The first roadblock they run into.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

There's an intermediary with us. We're gonna do most of the work, which is great news for them, but it's someone other than their computer that they have to deal with. So maybe that ends up being something they reconsider. Uh it's maybe not the path of least resistance for them. But as they say, with us doing most of the work without charging a listing fee, I think it's a pretty good angle. Do you give them guidance? Well, price, as we kitted about off camera, people love talking about money and it's and it's important. One of the questions, as you'd expect in that online submission form, is about reserve price and if they want one, what it is. So we assess that when we get the online submissions. In most cases, we accept the reserve price the way it's submitted. Uh most people are pretty realistic and they have a sense of what their car is worth. Uh in other cases, I think they might be overestimating. And I I talk about market, I talk about I try to throw some metrics at them and I ask if they'd consider something a little different.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

And you offer some extra services in terms of uh photography or are you shooting a video and things like that? What does that cost?

SPEAKER_00 9:29

We do we offer two options, both optional and both really priced uh on a cost recovery basis. One is photos and videos. We'll have a person do those. We charge $199 for that. We all we've only got a network of photographers though from southern Ontario up to eastern Ontario. And the other one we offer is a mobile pre-purchase inspection, which typically it's the buyer who's thinking of that, but we've got a third-party service who visit the car, and it's a licensed mechanic, licensed technician who comes. That person provides a written report, includes photos, usually even a video, and we put that onto the listing verbatim just to give those sight-unseen bidders uh some peace of mind.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

What do you offer that uh for Canadian bidders that bring a trailer doesn't offer to Canadians?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

The two biggest differences are we trade in Canadian dollars, so no needless uh foreign exchange hassles or getting currency. And the other one that's different is that, and this is based on having a smaller population here in Canada, and I think it's fair to say that we Canadians are a little more modest about online bidding. Uh if a car does not sell by auction and there is the in in which case there is a reserve, we'll offer it on a buy-it-now basis with the reserve price being the buy-it-now price.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. So what about comments? Like uh there's a huge controversy about the comments on Bring It Trailer. You know, some people that aren't even thinking about bidding will start making negative comments about a car and things like that. And uh so do you have that on uh on uh Collector Car Canada too?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr. We do have comments sections. I like to believe they're a little more constructive uh than the lowest comma denominator you're talking about. Uh being that it's our own forum and our own marketplace, we can decide whether or not a comment stays.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Aaron Powell, getting back to the comparison and bring a trailer, especially for folks in Canada. Um if I bought a car on uh in uh Wisconsin, for example, and uh and I paid $20,000 US for that car, how much would it cost for me to bring it into Canada?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Usually I uh I suggest to people they add 60 to 65 percent to that number on the in the closing US dollar fee to convert to Canadian dollars. Now that includes sales tax, which you're not gonna avoid in Canada anyway, but allow certainly 40% or so for foreign exchange. And then depending on the age of the car and its origin, there are other fees like RA RAV bot.ca. You might have heard of the registrar of imported vehicles. Yeah if a car is under 15 years old, it's got to be registered through that. That's a few hundred bucks. And then there's uh a duty based on the origin of the car. And of course, right now, duties and tariffs are a hot button item uh given the current political situation. So I don't know what they are today, but they might be different than they were last week.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

So what about cars that are that aren't built in North America? Cars that are built in Germany or Italy or somewhere like that?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

For a car from Germany, it attracts about a 6.8 or 6.9% duty, and that hasn't changed in many years. Not as susceptible to the current political environment.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

And when you say a car from Germany, you mean a car that was originally built in Germany.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Built in Germany, the VIN number starts with a W.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Many of my viewers are in the U.S. So what does Collector Car Canada offer for U.S. buyers?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Well, all of our cars are on sale for those buyers. Yes. Uh we don't sell a lot to U.S. uh buyers, but we do sell a few a year. Uh because someone's looking for something specific and they happen to find it on your site. That's often how it happens. Uh astute American buyers, though they'll they'll do the homework on well, homework, on what the exchange rates are like. I have a general hypothesis that the number is often very similar on either side of the border, but you've got that 40% difference on foreign exchange.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

A car sells for $50,000, typically US dollars in the US. We convert that to Canadian dollars, is you know, $1.35 or $1.4, let's say for easy uh arithmetic is $70,000 Canadian, right? Um would that same car, if it's sold in Canada, sell for $70,000 in Canada?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

I'm gonna say it's gonna sell closer to that $50,000 number to which it at which it's sold in the in the U.S. Of course, I I think we should make sure we should caution people to make sure they're doing their homework because there are tariffs in place now. Uh older cars are a little easier to bring in. Uh but if people do their homework, I think they're gonna find that uh there are a lot of buying opportunities north of the border.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

We spoke a little bit earlier about the delay in time between uh you filling out the for your 996, the the delay in time of uh doing that. So um what's the delay in time? If if I go online, put my information in, submit my photos, um pay my 90 sorry, what's the listing fee for uh we advertise a $99 fee, Gary, but there's a $99 rebate.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

So no listing fee currently.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Oh, when is the rebate paid?

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Oh you we don't charge the $99.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Oh immediately. Okay. So I list my car on uh Collector Car Canada for free, submit all the paperwork, all the pictures, and that kind of thing. I do all that tonight, okay? When will it be live?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Oh, I like to say if we have all the resources by Friday at noon, we're live by Tuesday the following week. We are quite nimble and we want to get cars onto the website. We like content. Uh that's typically our rule of thumb is if we have all the resources by Friday afternoon, we're live by Tuesday. Our tech our auctions typically run Tuesday to Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

So, in terms of selling the car, I've listed my car with you. And uh so what do you do to promote my car?

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Our biggest promotional tool, people might be surprised, is our daily email update. It's something that uh Bring a Trailer does as well. We keep talking about Bring a Trailer. But there's a reason to give updates every day because bids happen in real time. We want to make sure people are in touch with what's happening with our current auctions. Um this weekend I'm attending an event. It's uh it's a Ford event, the Ford Stampede at Flamborough Speedway. And uh we do that kind of stuff pretty well every weekend. We do uh events ourselves and we advertise with a bunch of different car clubs, strategically chosen to match uh what a lot of our offerings are online. And we're active in social media and YouTube and and all that good stuff as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

And what do I the daily update? What does that contain typically?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

It always shows the current cars on auction and what the current bids are the bid the high bid was at the time it was prepared. Okay. It's pretty close to real time. Uh and then we also have buy it now cars. I touched on those briefly. We uh show the buy it now cars as well. And there's always a theme each day. Uh if we haven't dedicated one daily email update to a car on auction, it might be that car. But if we've all the current auction cars have had an email dedicated to it, we might talk about a show where we hosted. Uh, we might talk about a podcast we've done, that kind of thing. We try to keep it fresh.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

So you offer up to 300 photos and uh the ability to upload a video for a listing. Why so much?

SPEAKER_00 16:46

I think I told you about the one example listing where there are about 850 photos in a situation where our car's been restored, and the restorer does a good job of documenting with uh with his camera uh what's going on. The photos really do add up. That same listing has over 20 videos.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah, yeah. But I think the reason for all this, A, we want uh sight unseen bidders to gain some peace of mind from what we're presenting. I approach this stuff, I believe, more from the buyer perspective. Sellers might find me a little, I won't say hard on them, but I do have an idea what I want to get from them in order to present a complete picture for the buyer.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

You have a feature that if some bids come in within the last, what is it, minute and 30 seconds, um, it continues on a little bit further. Can you explain that?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Yeah, not an uncommon thing in the online auction world. I we call that an anti-sniping feature. So that yeah, if there's a bid with a minute 30 or less left to go, uh the clock restores itself to a minute 30 to give other people a chance to react. It doesn't happen all of the time, but sometimes we get into overtime and they're great fun. There are a couple of years ago, there was a certain Porsche that was uh not even really within shouting distance of reserve with three minutes left to go, and I was a little uh disappointed. Twive minutes later it had blown reserve away. Wow. Because the overtime kept going and going, and these guys were going $500 at a time, so it took a while for the bidding to add up and and and eventually end.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

So you what's your curation uh process? You don't accept every listing, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:22

We don't turn anything away. People sometimes ask me if I work from a certain list of cars, the list would be too long. I I say I look at anything that's interesting, and interesting, it's not a quantitative measure. Anything can be interesting. Uh but we want to be sure we've got a motivated seller. Sometimes sellers aren't motivated, they want to just toss it our way and us to wave our magic wand to get their car sold. Sellers do need a level of involvement. Uh we've got to be on the money for price as well. I love it when we get no reserve uh opportunities because we know the car is going to sell. Um and usually they sell to a at a pretty realistic price. Um, but we want to be sure the seller is going to be able to provide us everything that we feel we need to give a good and accurate presentation of the car. Usually we can tell within a message or two whether the seller is a car person or not. And that's always an asset because often they're motivated and engaged about this car that they want to sell.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

So, Dave, what other services do you offer over and above what we've already talked about?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

They're called White Glove Service and the Concierge Locator Service. White Glove is uh for someone who wants to just give us the keys and we do the rest. I love doing these because I get to get my hands dirty, literally, because often I'll I'll help detail the car. But this is for someone who it's time to say goodbye. Maybe it's even a family member uh moving a car along. This is for someone in an estate. Uh and as I say, we pick up the keys and we do the rest. Uh be it detailing, we'll get we'll get the car detailed and ready for photographs, that's included in the service. And of course, we'll do we're partial to those pre-purchase inspections, we do that as well. Uh the one catch, full disclosure, we always run a no-reserve auction for those.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

So tell me a little bit more about the concierge locator.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Sure. That one's uh some people who want to sell, maybe they don't want the visibility of an auction. They'll come to me uh knowing that I'm talking to people about cars all the time. So basically for that, I keep two lists one list of sellers and what they have, and one list of buyers and what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

So, okay, so the auction's closed. Uh the person um winning bidder um got the winning bid. He's paid his um uh five percent fee and that kind of thing. What happens if he doesn't pay the seller and pick up the car?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Not something we have trouble with, Gary. In hundreds of auctions going for six years, this situation has happened once. And every time I describe it, I'm afraid, gee, why am I focusing on this when it's happened once in six years? But in the situation where it happened, uh, I'm not convinced the high bidder who placed his bid about four days before the auction ended, didn't die in the meantime. Anything's possible, of course, but we couldn't find this fella. Uh we did right by the seller, though, by relaunching the auction. And as coincidence would have it, it sold for exactly the amount of the second highest bid in the original auction, which is what would have it would have sold for if this fella had not bid.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

This is your full-time business. You're working on this every single day. So, what's selling right now and what isn't selling right now? Let's talk first about what's selling.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I owned a particular Porsche for 22 years. I'm always afraid of being a typecast as a Porsche person. I love Porsches, but they're not the only cars I love. But as it happens, people love 9 11s. They're valuable cars, and uh so that we do better with them in terms of buyer premium, of course. But the buyers don't seem to mind spending money on 9 11s. We do well with Porsches generally, but 9 11s specifically. Uh and Two others we do well with, very well known. I'm also a member of a Mustang Club. We do Mustangs, generally not worth as much as 9-11s. There are some valuable Mustangs, though, of course. We do well with Mustangs. And Corvettes are another one we do well with. Again, a popular car. There are always people moving along from a Corvette, often later in life. And there are people who want them, it seems.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

And what kind of cars, like performance cars specifically, don't do that well?

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Well, one thing we have trouble with in auction, we do just fine with them and buy it now, are the muscle cars. The domestic, say pre-1974, before the uh bumper bam bumper standards changed and uh emission standards changed. Uh, we find though the people who are interested in those cars are not so e-commerce friendly. They'd rather uh not put a credit card into our online system, which precludes them from uh bidding in an auction. But we do just fine with them afterwards. Uh, if the cars are still available and buy it now, uh, that takes a complication out from their perception uh in terms of buying one.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Aaron Powell And you were you were mentioning to me that uh cars often will sell for, like when you compare dollar per dollar and do the exchange, et cetera, that cars will sell for less in Canada than in the U.S. Can you expand it? Excuse me, can you expand on that?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

My general hypothesis is that um the number, the sale price number is usually pretty similar Canada to U.S. Of course, the big difference being in foreign exchange, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:39

So you're saying basically a $50,000 Porsche that sells for $50,000 in the U.S. will typically sell around $50,000 Canadian.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Maybe $55,000, maybe up close to $60, but it definitely don't take that $50,000 US dollar number and multiply it by $1.4 to get the sale in Canadian dollars for a car in Canada. And I get that expectation all the time from uh Canadian sellers, potential sellers on the website. And uh it's difficult to explain. Often I'm having to be the bearer of bad news. But uh when it comes down to it, it it you probably won't get that same number in Canada.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

But doesn't that mean there's an opportunity for U.S. buyers to buy Canadian cars?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Definitely there is. Definitely there is that we have some astute U.S. buyers who see it. Uh of course, in today's uh environment of uh tariffs that might change every week. It's really important that cross-border shoppers do their homework. Of course. But uh but yeah, definitely I like to say to U.S. buyers that our cars in Canada are on sale for them. Often U.S. buyers will be apprehensive about cars that have been driven around all winter. But when we're talking about a 40-year-old 9-11 in Canada, it hasn't been driven in the winter, anyways. The underside of it is much better than a five-year-old car in Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

So when you see a car sell for significantly more than the reserve, um, why is that?

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Sometimes it's uh I've underestimated the the uh the popularity of a car. There's one that comes to mind as you ask that question. It's something we sold last year, not a huge money car. I believe it was a 1970. Yeah, it was a 1972 Datson 240 Z. I think maybe my expectations were colored a little bit by this car having run on Bring a Trailer and not making reserve before it came to us. When it came to us, I'd I knew it had run on Bring a Trailer and not sold, uh, but those Z cars are still popular. Uh in this case, it was a car that a couple of brothers had shared for over the years, and uh they weren't trying to make big money. They they had enjoyed some appreciation on the car in their tenure of ownership, and they were pretty modest with their reserve expectation. Uh, I like to consider myself a good guy and an honest guy, Gary, but I rarely go back to sellers and tell them the reserve is too low. Yeah. But uh in this case, uh, I speak to sellers immediately leading up to the auction before the close. I always try to do that. And in this case, it was getting close to reserve, and they told me to sell the car. He was happy with where it was at that at that stage. We didn't have to tell anyone because by the time the clock ran out, the car had actually gone into overtime with that anti-sniping feature that we talked about, I think, a little earlier. Uh, and it it beat reserve by several thousand dollars, and the two brothers were quite happy, and so was I, of course. And I think even the buyer was happy. He happened to be in France. So he was spending euros, not Canadian dollars. So maybe the car was on sale to him, just like I say about those U.S. buyers.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

What's a situation where a car sold significantly, at least in your mind, below what it should have sold for? What were the circumstances that led to that? Bad photos.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Bad photos. It's it's you don't just snap your fingers and come up with good photos. Like the the uh marketplace ad with six grainy photos from the flip phone, right? They just don't cut it. And we've got a particular car on the website right now. It's a 1972 Corvette. Uh our photographer chose the right time of day for the photos. The the seller, in fairness, gave us a really clean car to photograph. The car just looks great on the on the website.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

So, what do you think is the is the single most undervalued car on online auctions uh today?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Sometimes there are Italian cars that don't do as well. You're asking for performance cars, and I'm thinking of uh Maseratis. I think of a Levante specifically, but that's an SUV. But the but the qu I was gonna say the quattroporte Maseratis, just they just have a tough depreciation curve at the start. Same with a modern Alfa Romeo Giulia.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

What's the single biggest variable that a seller can control in selling their car?

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Make sure you've got good photos. If we're doing the photos, we like to think we can take care of that. Often sellers elect to do that themselves, and we're just fine with that as long as they bring us a good selection of photos. If you have our service do your photos, our photographer is not going to detail the car. No. Make sure the car is clean, clean, clean when our photographer goes. Those are some of the things in the presentation. Um, anything 81 or newer, of course, we run a Carfax and publish those results on the detailed listing. I suppose the the seller can't affect what's been in the past, but uh if there are things that are noticeable on the Carfax, we encourage uh sellers to be upfront about that. One thing, one question I came up with myself in our online submission that I really like. If you were keeping your car, what would you do next?

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Speaking about performance cars, when is it best to go non-reserve?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

It's more a situation of personal circumstances. This fella's owned and enjoyed the car uh for 15 years or so. We did run it with a reserve earlier in the year. I don't run things over and over again. In this case, there's a material difference in the conditions of the auction. It's a no-reserve car. So we're we're pleased to do it. We're happy to run that one again. Um so as I say, this fella, he's ready to let go. It's time to let go. Uh he's confident based on the bidding on the earlier auction that no one's gonna buy it for $500. Um, so often when it's when it's time to let go, that's when people elect to go no reserve. How important is documentation and service history? Oh, those are great assets. I uh have an amateur assessment that I don't even know if the bidders really read the the documents word for word, just that they know that they're there and certainly that they relate to the car gives gives people a feeling of confidence that they're probably buying from another enthusiast who's bothered to keep a file uh of the work done on his car. Uh I saw such a car yesterday, a seller for an upcoming auction, and this guy had his ducks in a row. I could tell uh he'd loved his car. He struck me as that person, but when I saw he was seeing his believing when I saw his records.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

People take 300 photos or something like that. Which photos do people actually look at, or do do you think people scrutinize every single photo before they bid?

SPEAKER_00 30:25

It probably varies by model. Uh I'm an owner of an old Porsche 914. I think you know that model. There's a particular spot, it's a bit of a crass expression, but underneath the battery chain, they call it a hellhole. If you've got a 914 you're gonna auction, people who are into 914s, they're gonna want to see that. So it does vary by model, I think.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

What's the one thing that uh you see sellers do or want to do that makes you wince?

SPEAKER_00 30:50

The promotional hard sell typical car dealer talk. I see some of that. I'm more of a pull method seller. Uh push is like this is the best car, it's a great price. Da-da-da-da-da. Pull is more we're telling the story of the car, and we don't have we we we need more time to convince the buyer because it's not pushing something in their face. But I find the pull methods a lot stronger.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Do you often step in to help the the uh the person listing the car set the reserve or the buy it now price?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Well, the well, the buy it now price is by definition always the reserve price. It just gets transferred over uh if the car doesn't make reserve during the auction. But in the reserve, uh the often there's a discussion. Often we accept the reserve, usually we accept the reserve as submitted by the seller. That's when it first comes up. We've got that online submission on the website. Uh I saw two, I met with two sellers yesterday. I mean, these just happen to be the two sellers I talked to yesterday. Both of their reserves, I took them at exactly the price that they wanted.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

So, in terms of online car auctions, is a certain time of year that's better than other times? Certain buy, sell. Is there any seasonality to the whole thing?

SPEAKER_00 32:00

In the past winter, we sold a Ferrari 308, uh 86 Porsche 930, so 930 is the 911 turbo with the G-Body. Um we sold a 61 Corvette Fueli, a high value car, six-figure car. And the most valuable car we've sold yet was in February, uh, Ferrari Testerosa, an 87 Testerosa, which eclipsed $200,000. So if we have the cars available, there might be that someone who's wants to buy one then. So maybe it's all about timing. Kind of a late spring this year, and uh it took a little while for us to get the buyers out of the woodwork. Last year, our July and August would have been a little quieter than uh May and June. This year it's the obvious, and I think it's because of that pent-up seller in action earlier in the year.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

So if I'm thinking about buying a car and I'm checking out the listings, what are some red flags that I should be looking for?

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Sometimes I I find flowery language in the online submission, but I'm a tough son of a gun. I try to get the facts out of the seller before we're ready to go forward with the listing. I like to make our listings empirical, quantitative, and uh uh free of any opinion.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Pre-purchase inspection, um, how should a buyer handle that?

SPEAKER_00 33:23

We love it when bidders and potential bidders get in touch with sellers. I mean, from our perspective, if a if a bidder goes to see the a potential bidder goes to see the car, I think they're more likely to bid on it. So I love it when people go see the cars. Most of our sales, though, are sight unseen. Uh, in terms of a PPI, we do offer it to sellers. Uh bidders might reasonably say that the sellers are in a conflict of interest if they've paid for the PPI and they had their guy do it. Fine. Um, but that can be built into uh a visit, a showing. The seller's not obligated to do it. We'd certainly coach them to do it. It's in their interest to uh to keep the potential bidders happy and they're more likely to bid, of course.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

What's the one question that every buyer should ask every seller of the car that he's interested in that they forget to ask or they don't know to ask?

SPEAKER_00 34:16

If you were keeping your car, what would you do next? I love it when the rest of the submission gives me uh I see an honest tone in there and up front.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

So you say your platform is cajid free zones. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 34:31

All of our bidders are authenticated before they're allowed to be able to bid or use the private messaging system on our website. And that's because we collect our buyer premiums by credit card online. So think of me as the big bad auction company. If I run a successful auction, I want to make sure our business is going to get paid. So before people are able to bid, they register. Our third party credit card service provider is a company called Stripe.com, a leader in the e-commerce field. If you've ever paid for something online with your credit card, you've probably seen them asking for your postal code. The third party service provider matches the credit card up with that postal code. Once we're there, we know who this person is. What we do eliminates the keyboard warrior.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

So let's say I go through the process, I uh I'm buying a car, uh, I pay the money, uh, have the car shipped because I'm not local, and the car arrives and it's not, I don't feel it's what was represented. What do I do at that point?

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Your recourse there is with the seller. Uh when it when it comes down to it, when you really boil it down, we are, you don't think of it like this, we are an introduction service. All of our source, the source for all of the information we publish is the seller. So we are the facilitator, certainly, but we're not party to the agreement of purchase and sale. It is between the buyer and seller.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

You see cars uh sell at all different price points, but what's the most general price point that cars sell for most typical on our platform?

SPEAKER_00 36:07

On your platform? Oh, I'd say in the $20,000 to $30,000 range. We've sold things for in the hundreds of dollars that are non-runners that are no reserve, and the the seller is just looking for someone to come pick up the car and maybe just for parts. And we've sold things for $200,000 plus.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Right now, in terms of performance car, what would you what would you suggest what would what do you think would be a good buy in the $20,000 to $30,000 range?

SPEAKER_00 36:34

One car that I think well of, and it's actually lower priced than that. I think the original 986 boxers are a good buy. I think you get a lot for your money on those, particularly the S models where you get the six-speed and a little bit more power. You can buy those for under $20,000. In the 20s, uh you get a lot of power for money in a S550 Mustang.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Can you share with us a little bit about the future of Collector Car Canada, where it's going or changes you you're hoping to uh make?

SPEAKER_00 37:07

We are hoping and forecast continued slow and steady growth. We do have a couple of podcasts. One's the car reviews podcast. Necessarily the content there is reviews of the cars that are listed on the site. And we're not after views so much there as demonstrations uh for potential bidders. We've also we're also giving some thought to some how-tos and what to do, what not to do in terms of the site. So that's something we we're hoping to have a little fun with in the near future.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

So you're competing uh against platforms with huge uh marketing budgets and things like that. What's the secret sauce that Collector Car Canada uh brings to your customers?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Our two big differentiators are that we only we offer cars only in Canada. So often Canadians prefer to buy something that's in Canada. We trade in Canadian dollars.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

What kind of a collector car um buyer should be looking at uh collector car Canada as as a good place to find a vehicle?

SPEAKER_00 38:05

I think it's the people who maybe in their local market they're a little limited with the variety of what they can find. I've also bought cars where I've flown to the car and driven them home. Um but I think that might be an example of a buyer where their home market is limited and they're willing to do a little bit of distance. Maybe they elect to have the car shipped, maybe they elect to go to the car on site.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

So what kind of a seller should be looking at selling their car on?

SPEAKER_00 38:37

I think a real benefit, as I was saying earlier, we stay away, we keep them away from um the anonymity of the internet, being that our bidders are pre-authenticated. We do most of the work. We really like it though when a seller is engaged. We encourage a seller to pop up a comment on the auction just to start engaging with the buyers. And when there are questions, we really encourage them to answer them. We encourage them to take lots of photos of their car. We encourage them to give us lots of detail about the car, which of course inform our listing. So the people who are the enthusiasts, I guess, in short.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

So, Dave, what's one last thought that you'd like to share with our viewers about Collector Car Canada?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Well, I think it's important for people to know that we're talking about enthusiast vehicles, collector vehicles. I want people to know that the leadership of the business, all people involved in the business, are enthusiasts themselves.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Yeah. I uh it seems like I'm at a car event four times a week. And we keep people in touch with those with that what we've seen area of our uh of our site. So I like to say buy Canadian enthusiasts for Canadian enthusiasts, and that maybe sums it up.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Well, thank you, David, for uh spending your time with and sharing your uh information about Collector Car Canada uh with our viewers or appreciate it. I'd like to revisit this in a few months or something like that and get some updates from you about uh where the market's going and what's hot and what's not. And uh I hope we can do that again.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

That sounds like good fun, Gary. Yeah, I've enjoyed our our talk today, and even better if we get to do it again in a few months.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Now, if this conversation gave you something useful, and you know, I'm pretty sure that it did, do me a favor and hit that subscribe button because this is exactly the kind of content I'm building this channel around. Real conversations with real people about real numbers. No press cars, no sponsored content, just honest information for people who actually care about their cars. I've included the link to Collector Car Canada in the description down below. Check it out, and as always, any questions or comments, add them down below. I read every one. And if you want to see a sample of what Dave has in his personal car collection, Dave's 1989 Porsche 928 S4, I've got this full honest owner review right here. That's a car with a story, and Dave tells it better than anyone I've ever met.