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Bring a Trailer has become the automotive enthusiast town square and even the reference point for what some collectors cars now cost. Some people have dubbed it the BaT (Bring a Trailer) Tax, and feel the floor has risen on what some cars do, or should, cost and or are worth. For better or worse. But are auction results on Bring a Trailer outliers or does the site actually represent market values?
On the latest episode of The Drivecast, Howard Swig, who is now the President of Bring a Trailer, told The Drive, “I think the market is always evolving,” when asked if BaT auction results are actually representative of the market value of these cars.
Listen below from the moment Swig addresses what many refer to as the BaT Tax while addressing auction result outliers and market values.
Swig said, “Right now, 2026 has seen this major re-rating of a lot of these late model sports cars. People talk about the late model Ferrari market. We can dive into that. But things like Ford GTs and SLS AMGs and Supras, a bunch of the stuff you mentioned. I love that Bring a Trailer often is kind of ground zero for these headline results and these market moves that are these resets and the new leg higher.”
But there’s always a flip side. Swig noted, “And on the flip side, some stuff, I love Alfa Giuliettas. Well, they’re great cars to drive. Sadly, the market for them is pretty weak. That also plays out.”
Addressing why Bring a Trailer produces so many outliers in terms of auction results with big numbers Swig said, “Why do I think we’re a great place for that? I mean, part of it is just our sheer audience. Our registered bidder account is crazy. When you go to a tent auction, they serve a purpose and they do a great job, but you’re maybe getting a couple hundred, maybe 800 or a thousand registered bidders at a big tent auction. On BaT, it’s many, many multiples of that in the many hundreds of thousands.”
But not everyone registered, or even active and bidding, on BaT can afford cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions of dollars. “Obviously not all of those people can afford to buy a million dollar car, but when you get something really special, like you talk about NSX, we had a Zanardi edition NSX that sold a week or two ago for 650 grand, like 4X the previous result we’ve had for a Zanardi. Obviously that and NSX-R are kind of the halo NSXs and a car that is right over home plate for people of a certain age and right in the mix for something that’s hot, ’90s, 2000s. You just have some of this BaT auction magic. It’s the right car on the right platform that has a ton of people that are interested in it and a ton of people that are ready to put their hand in the air and buy it,” Swig said.
The Ford GT is another example, according to Swig. “And that leads to some of these heritage Ford GTs selling for two million bucks and we can go on down the line, but I still marvel at it and it makes me super happy and super proud that we have this platform that can unlock that sort of phenomenon, but it’s very real.”
The bottom line is simple, according to Swig, “But it starts with having the right car and we’re fortunate that we get a lot of the best cars and people recognize that Bring a Trailer is likely going to bring the highest result.”
But the fee structure, over a traditional auction house, also plays to BaT’s advantage in Swig’s eyes. “And our fee structure obviously is the higher up the food chain you go. People think it’s crazy that we sell million dollar cars and make 7,000 bucks. I love it. We should do more creative marketing around we made 0.0001% on this sale. Auction houses would probably hate us for that. We’ve steered away from doing that. But anyways, the economics of selling expensive cars on Bring a Trailer is very, very favorable to both buyers and sellers. I think most people get that, but in some cases it’s wild how favorable they are when you compare it to alternative places to sell and what you’d pay in fees to do that,” Swig said.
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As Director of Content and Product, Joel draws on over 15 years of newsroom experience and inability to actually stop working to help ensure The Drive shapes the future of automotive media. He’s also a World Car Award juror.
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