Looking for a highly collectible luxury car? Try auction sites.

Auction sites for collectible cars, like Bring a Trailer and the Bonhams, are booming. Their niche is supercars built in limited numbers by marques like Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, and Bugatti. Classics from Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce are also available alongside modern exotics.

In 2022, a rare 1955 Mercedes-Benz vehicle known for its speed, design, and engineering became the most expensive car ever sold at auction. RM Sotheby’s sold a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe for $142 million. 

With collectible car values continuing to climb, Alex Hirschi, the Dubai automotive influencer Supercar Blondie who turned her hobby into a million-dollar fortune, is launching a luxury car digital auction company, SBX Cars.

With over $100 million in confirmed consignments before launch, the digital auction platform debuts with several world-first exclusives, including the Mercedes–AMG One, the Hyperion XP-1 prototype, and the Tesla Cybertruck.

The digital platform is born out of demand, says the social media sensation, whose automotive stories command an audience of millions, and her vlogs have had over a billion views. 

“We’ve been receiving email after email asking if we know anyone who would like to ‘buy this car’ or ‘sell this car,’ and we just didn’t have the time to pick up the phone and call everyone individually to ask around, it just wasn’t something we could cater to, which in itself is a full-time business,” says Hirschi, who has been flying all over the world to track down the most exclusive cars to film.

Over the last few years, she has built an extensive network of collectors, dealers, and car lovers. Now, realizing a significant demand for buyers and sellers of exclusive vehicles to be connected worldwide, Hirshchi launched the auction platform focusing on the “super rare, 

exclusive and high-end market.” 

She says the platform is for collectors from Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe “who have the buying power but don’t have the connections or the knowledge as to what’s available and where.”

Hirshchi, who has built a successful social media brand, says there is a “huge demand” for the cars she featured in her videos. “We have had instances where we filmed a limited production car, and all units sold shortly after we published it.”

SBX Cars will leverage the marketing reach of her media business to reach the right buyer – Supercar Blondie has a following of 110 million people.

She adds that there’s interest from some collectors in buying the concept cars and one-off non-production cars that she featured, especially the one-off concept called Hyperion, which was built in collaboration with NASA. 

A specialist in-house auction team will be tasked with finding the most incredible cars around the globe and tracking the collector car market to help sellers set auction prices for their cars. 

“As we grow, we will have specialists in every region we offer cars so that we can have a realistic indication of what cars are trading for in various markets.”

So what will the price range of cars be? 

“There’s no expected value; rather, we want to offer the world’s most exciting and collectible cars to a global market,” she says.

At launch, she adds, there are vehicles ranging from $150k to over $10 million and have plans for auctions over $15 million in the future. 

“One of the first lots will be one of the most talked about cars in the world right now, the Tesla Cybertruck, and we’re auctioning it at no reserve. Other auctions in our special vehicle category include the first-ever BMWxTyde glass yacht and a multi-million dollar robot made in Japan.” 

There’s a selection of hypercars, such as the Mercedes Project One, classic collectibles like the 300 SL Gullwing, and a few classic cult cars.

While in-house auctions hold a valuable place in the world of buying and selling, a new type of collector is on the rise who doesn’t necessarily have the time or the desire to travel halfway across the world, at a specific time and specific place to bid on the car of their dreams. 

This is the segment Hirschi wants to tap into. 

“Collectors want the convenience of buying and selling their cars from anywhere in the world. If you want to auction your $3 million car and call an in-house auction company, you will have to wait, possibly months, for the next auction.”

“With this digital platform, you can list it tomorrow and have it sold within a week or two…,” she continues.

For some time, there were doubts about being able to sell multi-million dollar cars online, but that doubt has been cast by the wayside, she says. “We’ve seen proof that multi-million dollar cars can be sold online.”

“We believe that a digital auction platform provides the best value for our users, bringing together our global community, speeding up the rate at which cars can be offered to the market, and keeping the sale as low risk as possible. We can also keep our costs lower than in-house auctions, meaning the commission will be less than half their standard commission,” Hirschi adds.