The huge success of Bring a Trailer—which, disclosure, is owned by Road & Track's parent company, Hearst Autos—has led to a number of new enthusiast-car auction sites created in the last few years. There's Cars and Bids, P-Car Market, Collecting Cars, and many others. Even longtime classic car journal and classified repository Hemmings launched an auction platform. Now, Porsche is in the game.
Today marks the full launch of auctions on Marqued, a site created by Porsche Digital which first went live last summer. Porsche Digital is a subsidiary of the automaker designed to "find and scale new digital business models as well as optimizing existing products," according to its website. The division is based in Palo Alto, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Interestingly, Marqued is not a Porsche-specific site. Right now, you'll find auctions for a Toyota FJ Cruiser, a BMW M Roadster, a Fiat Jolly, and a gorgeous Fiat 1100 TV Vingale Coupe in addition to a handful of 911s. Quite an eclectic collection.
"While there are already some great auction sites out there in this space, we identified a need to complement them by building something aimed at those new to the world of classics," said Porsche Digital Inc. Managing Director Stephan Baral in a statement. To that end, the cars on the site are curated and feature additional information written by Marqued staff. All auctions are two weeks long, in an attempt to offer more flexibility for buyers and sellers. (Bring a Trailer offers two-week auctions, though at a premium.)
Auctions on Marqued began quietly late last year, and while many of the first listings didn't meet reserve, a handful of cars listed have since sold at market price. A clean 2005 Subaru Impreza WRX STI sold for $34,000, which seems about right in this crazy current market, though a no-reserve 2006 Mercedes CL500 got away for $6000.
Enthusiasts today seem to love these sorts of Bring a Trailer-style auction sites, but there's a real question on if the market is oversaturated. Some of these new sites are doing well, but there are a number of others that quickly failed. And competing with the juggernaut that is Bring a Trailer is surely a huge challenge.
A car enthusiast since childhood, Chris Perkins served as Road & Track's engineering nerd and Porsche apologist.
