I dont know what you are saying there Perry. The prices shown are the prices at which real people have bought real cars but in mentioning your Range Rover pal you are mixing up two trades. The dealer trade you mention is the normal channel. As much as 90% of cars are on finance / lease and lease companies almost always sell through auctions to get rid quickly and cleanly. These auctions are where big dealers get their forecourt stock. Sometimes those auctions are limited to dealers only, though I have bought that way myself several times. Its also the standard sales route for the likes of "we buy any car" etc - they buy from you at auction price less a margin and then sell through the auction. Might a dealer then add a margin to cover his extra costs like the guarantee he has to give? Of course , so the buyer pays more and gets more.
But auctions are also used as in this case for the sale of rare / unusual items for which there is no volume trade. Morgan cars, or exotica like Ferraris are a case in point. At a time like this when such cars are not moving off the forecourt or even being accepted for sale by dealers, its the only way to establish what a car is worth. Give the auction lots of publicity, as in this case, and see what interest there is.
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Sorry Howard, not everything is black and white and I am not mixing anything up. I work in this industry and see it daily. Many trades buy off publicly available auction websites. Collecting Cars for example has a high rate of sold vehicles being scooped up my retailers who then mark them up and sell them on their forecourt. But as you say, private owners also buy off the same sites. Do most offer a sale price lower than what you find on Autotrader and retailers, for the most part yes.
I was privy to a focus group study on car buying habits and it was interesting that a significant amount of those we spoke to understood that buying from an auction can result in saving but felt nervous about doing so. Most of it came down to not being able to take it for an inspection, a proper test drive, too far to go to even inspect etc.
As for the cars like a Morgan or exotica examples, here too a retailer can make a tidy profit on a public website offering in buying something that isn't mainstream when they see the selling price is below what they perceive as market value.
