Technical article

Classic Cars: What They Earn, What They Cost, and When the Family Sells

A sibling who wants the car could buy it from the others at an agreed value.

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Imagine a widow in Ohio with a car in the garage that her husband drove on Sunday mornings. Her son lives in Spain and her daughter lives ten minutes away. The car runs. The question at the table is whether to keep Dad's car or sell it.

What the market has done

The market has been soft. Hagerty's market rating fell to 58.28 in January 2026, its lowest in nearly 15 years, and has declined in 37 of the past 43 months, as reported by a motoring site. The same report says the median auction price was US$26,513 and that 35.2% of private sales were above insured value. In the UK, Hagerty UK reported in December 2025 that nearly 80% of classic car values dropped or stayed flat in 2025. Older British cars were weakest, with Jaguar down 21.4% in 12 months, while cars from the 1980s and 1990s rose. Knight Frank's index put classic cars at minus 3.7% for 2025. Those are the sources' figures. They average over many cars, and one car can sit far from the average.

What it costs to sell

The data site is tier U. A blogger describes a 2005 Audi TT that drew offers of US$5,000 from a dealer and US$7,000 from a car chain. It sold online for US$17,500. The seller paid a US$99 fee, a US$250 photographer and US$1,200 for detailing. That is one car in 2021.

Hagerty UK describes "agreed value" cover, where the insurer and owner fix the car's worth at the start, and a total loss pays that sum less the excess. Insurance cost and storage cost per year were not in the sources.

What the tax rules say

In the US, an estate values a car at retail, meaning what a member of the public would pay for the same make, model, age and condition, and not the dealer trade-in price. The federal exclusion is US$15 million per person in 2026. For an heir, the basis is usually the value at death, so a later sale is taxed only on gain above it. In the UK, a private car is outside capital gains tax. A car built before 1 January 1986 is exempt from vehicle tax from 1 April 2026, if the owner applies, and a car over 40 years old is exempt from the yearly test.

You might say: "Dad would want it kept." That may be true, and there is no wrong answer in the sources. The numbers only say what keeping costs and what selling brings in. Some families keep it a year to decide while they photograph it, collect the service history and find the title.

You could ask what each child wants from the car. Is it driving it, owning it, or the money? A sibling who wants the car could buy it from the others at an agreed value. A sibling who lives abroad has a different set of options. Moving a car across a border has its own rules.

Who drove the car in your family, and who would you ask before it goes? Share it here. Someone may be asking the same question this month.

Figures are estimates for planning, based on public data. Date read: October 2026.