Where to find a classic car online

If you’re looking to buy a classic car, the internet can seem a bewildering place to start your search. After all, there are so many sellers out there, from small individual sales to large websites handling hundreds or even thousands of classics. So where should you go to find your perfect vintage vehicle?

There are a few websites out there that we’d particularly recommend adding to your bookmarks, either for their ease of use or for the sheer range they offer, and we’ll run through these briefly below. And the good news is that, whatever your classic and wherever you find it, our vast experience in the sector means we’ll be able to find the classic car insurance you need.

Bicester Sports & Classics

This classic car sales brand has 35 years of experience in the business – and it brings a thorough, belt-and-braces philosophy to the selling of classic cars.

Bicester Sports won't just sell you a car: it also believes in introducing new owners to the finer points of life with a vintage vehicle. So, each sale will include a workshop inspection and report, plus a full service and MOT inspection, a detailed valet, an engine compression check, and various other hugely valuable vehicle health checks.

This kind of attention to detail should give you a lot more reassurance that you’re buying a classic with plenty more years of life in them. And all being well, without some of the big repair bills that these older vehicles can so often attract. Arranging a thorough once-over like this for your vehicle, and then complementing this with some suitable classic car insurance, should improve your chances of some relatively stress-free, inexpensive years of classic motoring.

Most of the cars on the Bicester site are around 30-40 years old – and in very good condition. Each vehicle will also have at least 20 pictures of its interior and exterior, so you can have a pretty good idea of the state of the car even before you make direct contact. In short, this is a well-presented website that clearly shows that Bicester takes the selling of classic cars very seriously.

Car and Classic

This comprehensive website have a huge selection of classics, although its remit doesn't stop there. The Car and Classic website are also a productive place to start your quest for a motorbike, modern car, 4x4 or campervan.

There's a nicely broad range of vehicles for sale under the ‘Classic Cars’ tab. You could easily just keep on scrolling down the home page and take yourself on a virtual tour of classic cars of every stripe, vintage and price tag imaginable.

A more effective use of your time, however, will be to use the tabs on the left-hand side of the homepage to refine your search. You can do this by type of vehicle (classics, American cars, campervans and so on), or by marque.

Choosing the latter will give you a sense of the vast haul of vehicles listed on the site. When we selected MG, for example, we were given an impressive (and slightly overwhelming) 1,050 results. These can then be broken down into further categories, such as price (under £1,000, then £1,000 to £2,5000, and so on up the scale).

You can also refine your search by choosing a start and end year. Say you only want a 1963-74 MGB, for example, with the chrome bumpers, rather than the safer but less graceful rubber ones that took over from autumn '74 onwards. Just click on MG in the left taskbar, then input 'MGB' in the 'Keyword' field and the relevant years in the 'Year From' and 'Year To' fields, and lo and behold – a delicious selection of chrome-bumpered MGBs for you to peruse. You can read more about the MGB's evolution elsewhere on our website.

You can also select by region, if you don't want to travel miles across the country to get hold of the classic car of your dreams.

Clicking on a given car will bring up more information and images about the vehicle – including price, mileage, year, a seller's description and, of course, a more detailed and informative set of images.

Elsewhere, the website has a helpful ‘Magazine’ area full of useful classics-related articles and advice. Lastly, if you're looking to sell your classic, Car and Classic will take care of that for you, too. In short, it's hard to imagine a more comprehensive online classics marketplace.

ClassicCarsForSale

This is another large, easily navigable, largely UK-wide database of classic cars for sale. Although not quite on the same scale as Car and Classic (for example, on the day we checked, there were 387 MGs for sale, of which 357 were here in the UK), there's still a huge range of tempting vehicles from yesteryear on the site.

Once again, you can refine your search by looking for a particular marque only. And, again, the initial landing page for each model gives you the essentials (mileage, price, a lead image), while clicking on any vehicle will take you to a much more detailed microsite with more descriptions and a good selection of pics. The number of these will vary – some cars might have just half a dozen pictures, others as many as 50. But once again, there are contact details (specifically, a phone number) attached to every advert, so following up to ask for more information and images should be easy enough.

If you’d rather get across your concerns and questions in an email, there's the option to send questions over, although this is done by a form rather than supplying you with the seller's email directly. Talking of the sellers, these are a mix of private vendors and larger car dealers.

Other features on ClassicCarsForSale include a page listing a few major upcoming classic car auctions, plus a generously stocked Reviews section. In the latter, we clicked on Ford and found no fewer than 10 reviews – not hugely detailed, but not bad as introductions. There seemed to be a bent towards sporting models, with Capris and souped-up Sierras having a strong presence.

Classic Driver

This is one of the more upmarket of the various online classic car sales websites – but that's not to say that the selection is fastidiously small.

There were an impressive 7,000 classics up for sale on this site when we checked, with prestige and/or unique classics making up a significant proportion of that total. The Cars home page, for example, brought up some truly wonderful slices of vintage automobilia including a 1970 Mercedes SL 'Pagoda top' (one of our very favourite classic Mercs, as we discussed in this article).

Other highlights included an extremely rare 1985 Fiat 124 (very few of these lithe, sinuous Fiats made it onto our shores), and a stunning 1972 Ferrari 365, yours for a shade under £200,000.

So far, so impressive. What we really like about this website, though, is how much else there is to look at beyond the realms of classic car ads. It's the website for the magazine of the same name, after all, so clicking on the 'Magazine' tab brings up a nice selection of vintage-vehicle reading material. We quite like their weekly feature 'Five classics for your garage'.

Back to the adverts themselves: well, there's a definite leaning towards high-end cars, as we said. Filtering the 'Price' field down to £500 to £1,000, for example, brings up just one result. By contrast, the previous site we mentioned, ClassicCarsForSale, found us 10 Fords alone for under £1,000.

Even the next bracket up, £1,000 to £2,000, only brings three results, whereas on most other classics sites you’d now be in the sweet spot, with thousands of entries. But it's indicative of Classic Driver's particular niche that even these three budget motors are each unusual in their way. For example, they include a V6 Renault Safrane, a car that never made it big in this country.

So, if you're looking for a budget classic, Classic Driver is not the site for you. If, on the other hand, you're after something a bit more unusual, or if you simply want a browse of some of the rarest and most desirable classics currently changing hands, this site is an enjoyable place to while away an hour or three.

Bonhams

One of the leading classic car auction sites, Bonhams is a good place to try if a) you've got a decent budget and are looking at the more desirable end of the classic car marketplace, and b) you fancy the cut and thrust of the online auction.

Buying a car via auction, rather than a straightforward, fixed-price sale, may not be for everyone – but if you feel you've got the right mindset, you could pick up a good deal. By the way, we went into the classic car auction world in greater depth in our two features, A quick guide to online car auctions and Car auction myths busted!

Anyway, back to Bonhams. The descriptions of each car coming up for auction are excellent, comprising both an informative general model history, and a potted bio of this example. The service and restoration histories within this, for example, are exhaustive – a quick scan of a lovely Porsche 928 included the date of a particular headlamp fault fix, as well as the company who carried out the repairs. The photos are also, as you would expect from such a high-end auction house, exemplary. Make no mistake, you'll be able to build up a full picture of the state of health of any car you bid for here.

There are no filters available – it's simply a case of browsing all the cars coming up for auction soon. However, as these are a relatively small number – 31 live auctions and 34 'coming soon' when we checked – and as the cars on show are all so beautiful, it's hardly an onerous process.

Silverstone Auctions

The team at Silverstone Auctions has some serious automotive pedigree behind it. For one thing, it’s helmed by Nick Whale, a racing driver who competes in historic rallying and saloon racing events. Nick's also the main dealer for several prestigious brands including Porsche and Ferrari. You might say he knows his classic cars.

Silverstone holds a regular mix of online and physical auctions. The latter include events at Silverstone Circuit itself, as well as various annual auctions at other major classic car events. These include, of course, the NEC Classic Motor Show, which we at Lancaster Classic Car Insurance are very proud to sponsor. Indeed, the NEC Motor Show was the company's highest grossing individual sale of 2021 – a year that saw them sell an eye-watering £37.46 million worth of cars.

Their online presence is perhaps smaller – but still impressive. Visit the Silverstone Digital Auctions link and you’ll find a select handful of classics with a definite sporting bent. On the day we looked, cars up for grabs included a rip-roaring, 6-litre Vauxhall VXR8 from 2007, and a 1992 Jaguar XJS Coupé. Click on any of the vehicles and you'll get full details including photos, mileage, a short summary of the car's history, plus current bid and time remaining until the auction closes. You'll need to sign up to enter a bid for any car, but the process is quick and painless – essentially, name, email address and password.

Exchange and Mart

You'll probably already know of Exchange and Mart, a vast online marketplace where individuals sell all manner of goods. However, there’s also a decent classic car selection on here, found on the link above. The day we checked, there were an impressive 313 classics on sale, spanning a nice range of automotive excellence from Alfa Romeo to Wolseley and everything in between.

The write-ups are serviceable, if not as comprehensive as you'll find on some more specialist sites. Of course, you'll find a wide range of sellers here, both individuals and dealers. When it comes to the latter, you'll often find finance options available, meaning that you'll be able to pay for your classic at a rate that suits you. You also have the option to message the seller directly if you have further questions or want to arrange a viewing.

Always worth a browse just to see what classics the great British public are trading.

Classic and Sports Car

This is another website attached to a major classic’s magazine, so there's plenty to read here. Just click on the main Classic and Sports Car badge at the top of the homepage to be taken to their online 'Magazine', featuring a nice mix of vintage drives, classic head-to-heads (the Ford Cortina 1600E v Renault 16TS v Fiat 125S group test caught our eye), classics of the future and more.

Back to the classic cars for sale, though. There are plenty of them, and they are nicely organised and easily searchable. We also like the odometer-style counter, telling you how many classics they've currently got online – some 2,539, on the day we checked.

Then, you can either browse the enormous inventory of used and classic cars – or select a given marque. Do the latter, and the counter will instantly flip round to the number of that marque on the books – so, there were 49 classic Citroens the day we looked. You can also choose to refine your search by entering your postcode and seeing the cars nearest to you first.

Handily, though, there are plenty of other ways to refine your search, some of which will be particularly useful to fans of a certain type of vehicle or drivers seeking specific performance or attributes. You can click on the 'More options' tab to reveal a further series of potentially useful filters such as colour, number of doors, engine size – and even 0-62mph time!

5 top tips for buying a classic car online

Here are a few essentials for getting a good outcome from your online classic car shopping experience. You might also want to read more about buying a car at auction and how to spot a classic car scam online.

1. Research, research, research

Buying a classic car is a big investment, so it goes without saying that a decent amount of research is essential before you part with your hard-earned cash.

Get an idea of exactly what car you want. Can you narrow it down to one marque and model, or is it more a specific car type – hot hatch, estate and so on? Are you fascinated by, and nostalgic for, a certain era – the 1970s, for example? Get to know how much the cars you like tend to change hands for and compare this with the budget you've set for yourself.
You should then investigate aspects of the vehicle's car and maintenance, such as:

• Will spare parts be easy to come by?
• Is the car a marque and model that many UK repairers and restorers will be familiar with? If you're looking at a Mk1 Golf, there should be lots of repairers out there who know the car and can perform any restoration work you require. If the car is rarer, this kind of expertise may be trickier to find.

2. Join an owners’ club

Is there a UK owners' club for the make and model of car you're considering? As we've stressed many times before, joining an owners' club is an absolutely invaluable step to take when you take on a classic car. You'll be connecting yourself with a whole world of friendly expertise and advice: what's more, the club may be able to help you negotiate a discount on your classic car insurance. Here at Lancaster, we have many partnerships with clubs up and down the country.

3. Stick to your budget
   

   When you start hunting around for a classic, it’s generally a sensible idea to set yourself a budget. You know what you can afford – both in terms of the initial purchase price, and then ongoing costs such as repair work and classic/vintage car insurance. Again, for the former, membership of an owners’ club is recommended: you can then ask fellow members what sorts of costs they think you may come up against with the car you have in mind. Most of these clubs don’t demand that you own the relevant car before joining, so they can be a great place for learning what to look for and what to pay.

Then, once you’ve settled on a budget, try to stick to it. That figure can suddenly seem a whole lot less compelling when you see the classic car of your dreams, advertised for just a few hundred above your limit. But think carefully about all the other costs involved – transportation, restoration, classic car insurance and so on.

4. See car in the metal

   If the car’s near enough to get to and your own schedule allows, it’s definitely worth asking to have a look at any classic car before you commit to a purchase. After all, no matter how comprehensive the sales or auction listing appears to be, it’s quite possible that they will have omitted some small flaw which could result in some expensive repair work. If you have a mechanic friend who knows their cars, ask if they can come along with you to provide some additional expertise.

5. Select the right classic car insurance

Choosing the perfect classic car is the fun part of the process. Equally essential, though, is to make sure the vehicle is properly taxed and insured before you drive it away.

The latter is something we can definitely help with here at Lancaster Insurance. We have access to a range of car insurance for classic cars and vintage car insurance schemes in the UK. We’ve been arranging classic car insurance for over 30 years, and our ongoing relationships with carefully selected underwriters allow us to offer both comprehensive and bespoke insurance for a wealth of classic cars.

As soon as you’ve found the classic of your dreams, why not contact us for a quote?