Long vehicle wait times are seeing brand new car prices soar at auction with a 2022 Chevrolet Corvette C8 recently selling for $95k over the retail price with many more 2022 models coming to auction according to Lloyds Auctioneers and Valuers.
These Corvettes usually retail for $160,000 but come auction day the hammer price was $255,000.
“We have seen this as a trend with many brand-new cars recently as wait times become longer and longer, usually a minimum of 12 months and some up to 2 years or more,” said Mr. Lee Hames, chief operations officer for Lloyds Auctions.
“In an upcoming passenger, luxury and commercial vehicles auction there are two 2022 Toyota model vehicles available which we believe we will see a similar trend in results,” continued Mr. Hames.
The two vehicles up for auction are a 2022 Toyota Landcruiser GXL and a 2022 Toyota Hilux SR both with delivery kilometres only on the cars.
“These two models have waiting periods of over 12 months each but now bidders have the opportunity to own them now,” said Mr. Hames.
The Landcruiser retails for just over $75,000 and the Hilux between $24,000 and $70,000 depending on the model.
It isn’t the first time that Lloyds has seen vehicles sell for more than the original retail price. Earlier in March this year Lloyds auctioned second-hand Tesla’s for higher prices than their original price where a 2022 Tesla Model 3 sold for$73,000 when it normally retailed for $68,000.
“People are selling their vehicles as they may have purchased them a while ago and have bought something else in the meantime due to the long wait times. A lot of people also switched to electric cars due to the fuel price hike and are deciding to keep their electric cars over their combustion engine cars,” explained Mr. Hames