In 2020, Hagerty produced a compelling article about the size of the collector car market in the United States. In this piece titled, "The collector car market is bigger than you think," the author points out that at the time of publication, there were some 31 million collector-grade vehicles in the U.S.
The data calculation was a little messy, with Hagerty reaching into its own database of customers along with "boiling the ocean" in terms of how many cars and trucks total were on the road. Then, they broke down what constituted a "collector" car that extended the goalposts to allow for late-model entries belonging to the post-boomer contingent.
What's most intriguing about this report is not necessarily the numbers (though they are impressive) but more what it represents which is how many people have a second car squirreled away that counts as the "collector" or "hobby" car. While we can go several days without seeing a single interesting car in traffic, the reality is there are millions of enthusiast-grade vehicles hiding in driveways and storage units, waiting for the weekend or a complete revival.
For The Common Gear, this represents a tremendous batch of potential customers who need to take steps now to protect their investment and digitize the valuable records that capture every improvement necessary to justify both a higher insured value and stronger sale price, when the time comes.