It’s a fairly well-accepted theory that in the COVID era – during which uncertainty about the future has paired with the abrupt halt of being able to spend big on, for example, expensive holidays abroad – many more people than usual have looked to spend their money on things like home renovations or the nostalgic thrills to be found in owning and enjoying a classic car.

The result has been something of a boom in the classic car market. Australian-made vehicles have enjoyed a particularly buoyant time with tremendous auction prices achieved for some of the country’s best-known automotive gems. But while the headline grabbers have been the rare and/or performance-spec Toranas, Monaros, and Falcons of the 1960s and 1970s, the market is pretty good too for their elegant European contemporaries, and if you have deep pockets and a taste that favours the cool stylings of that era’s models from Lamborghini, Mercedes, Jaguar, Maserati et al, then there are places and people to whom you can turn to satisfy that need.

One such business is Oldtimer Australia, a classic car brokerage business that has been catering to the high-end classic car market since 1996.

Tucked away on the outskirts of Brisbane, down a quiet street not far from the city’s airport, lies the company’s showroom.

Owned and run by classic car aficionado Mark Jansen since 2011, it is an Aladdin’s cave of stunning automotive art, and the brands and models that lie therein are enough to make even the most jaded collector drool.

On the day of Motor Trader’s visit, parked up in the showroom was a 1974 Maserati Merak, a 1970 E-Type Jag, a glorious 1972 Citroen SM, a 1966 Mercedes 250SE, a 1977 IROC Challenge Series Porsche 911, a 1969 Maserati Ghibli, a 1975 Morgan Plus 8, a 1973 Lotus Elan +2S, a 1976 Mark 2 Jag . . . the list goes on.

It’s a remarkable place to be if you’re a car enthusiast, and in amongst the cars for sale are a couple of Mark’s personal vehicles which stand as a testament to his own impeccable taste. The pick of these, perhaps, is the 1971 Monteverdi 375L High Speed – a rarity even amongst these rare beasts and an absolute beauty that has been restored to tip-top condition.

These cars represent the market niche in which Mark and the Oldtimer Australia business moves: close-to-mint condition, high-end sporting automobiles for well-heeled clients with an appetite for the exotic, the unusual, and the rare.

“Oldtimer Australia is a very boutique classic car business,” says Mark. “Our niche would be English and European sporting cars of the ’50s through ’90s, though we do, from time to time, move outside of that space – maybe for a particular client who has a different type of car that is a bit more modern, or possibly something American or Japanese.

“We try to focus on cars that are in excellent-to-concourse condition too,” he adds. “We will sell a car that is a restoration project, or a barn find if it
is the right sort of car, but we do tend to be quite selective.”

Being a brokerage, or consignment, business, means being a middleman – a knowledgeable partner who helps clients looking to buy or sell cars– and, in Oldtimer Australia’s case, being trusted to look after these prized machines while also being able to help clients search for and locate the rare or unusual vehicle they’ve always wished to own.

“A lot of the work we do is matching buyers and sellers, and I have people phoning every day looking for cars,” says Mark. “There are a number of collectors around who ask me to keep an eye out for certain cars and, as a result, a lot of cars we sell are sold before they are advertised or on the market.”

To be successful, especially in a sector involving very expensive vehicles, means having a solid-gold reputation and, just as importantly, having the network of contacts to be able to do the deals clients’ want.

For Mark, being a long-time collector himself has been a bonus in that respect, and that network has been especially useful over the past couple of years.

“It is probably the most critical part of the business,” he says. “The classic car community in which we move is, in some ways, quite small. Everyone knows everyone, and so it is important to build a really good reputation.

“The last couple of years have been challenging because we haven’t been able to travel, but I have been able to leverage our network – the relationships that I have built over the time I have had the business and through being a car enthusiast all my life – as well as the reputation of the previous owner, Terry Healy. I know a lot of people in the car world, and that has certainly been a benefit during the COVID period.”

While the network of serious potential buyers is vital, it doesn’t hurt that interest in classic cars is always strong across all sections of the community – a fact reflected in Oldtimer Australia’s potent social media presence. The business has nearly 30,000 followers on Facebook, 2500 on Instagram, has a 3000-strong subscriber base for its monthly newsletter, and also has a YouTube channel that, while relatively small currently, will be the focus of some solid marketing attention in coming months.

CLICK HERE to visit the Oldtimer Australia YouTube channel.

“The network is probably what is most important, but through modern technology we are able to communicate things in a really broad way,” says Mark.

“We have to embrace that and use it, and it is definitely powerful and the way of the future.

“And we will expand on our video presence on YouTube, which we currently use to demonstrate cars to a potential buyer. Through those videos you can see that a car runs and drives well, you can hear it going up and down the gears and that the engine pulls strongly and that it’s not blowing any smoke. It is always good to see the car in motion. We try to make the videos as nice as we can and though they are time consuming, we will be ramp that up a bit.”

Whether clients come in through Mark’s well-established network or via new social media communications, they will always have some very choice product to choose from. There have been some truly magnificent vehicles move through the Oldtimer Australia showroom, and having moved in and around the high-end classic car market for so many years, the question to Mark becomes just what might be the pick of the many classics he has found, bought, or sold? It’s not an easy question to answer.

“We have sold some amazing cars over the journey, and the quality of cars that still exist in this country is unbelievable,” he says. “Picking a favourite is a bit like being asked to choose between your children, but some of the more significant cars would include the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing – of which we have sold a few and which is arguably one of the most iconic classic cars in the world – through to Lamborghini Miuras and a number of classic Ferraris. We also sold a wonderful Type 57 Bugatti last year. That particular car had been previously owned by the actor Nicholas Cage. It was purchased in America and was restored here in Australia for its Brisbane-based owner. That was a pretty special car.”

While Oldtimer Australia is at the top of the classic car game, it is not all plain sailing. High-end classic cars are an expensive investment – one reason, along with their rarity, of course, that you’re unlikely to see a Lamborghini Miura or an Aston Martin DB5 cruising the suburbs and parking up at your local Coles – and there are some hurdles that make importing into the Australian market a little more restrictive. While there are buyers who can afford to, and indeed do, drop six-figure sums on these cars, those restrictions do make the local market somewhat insular.

A particular thorn in the side of high-value car importers is, says Mark, the Luxury Car Tax (LCT) – a tax that currently stands at 33 per cent for vehicles over the threshold of $79,659 for ‘fuel-efficient vehicles’ and $69,152 for others. Introduced in 2001, apparently as a mechanism to prop up local automotive manufacturing by ensuring the prices of luxury imports would not become competitive with those vehicles built in Australia, the LCT continues today even though Ford, Holden, and Toyota have long since folded up their local manufacturing tents.

While the procedure for exporting from Australia is mostly headache-free, importing is far more taxing (no pun intended) and is, says Mark, one of the barriers to making the classic car sector even more vibrant.

“To export, the process is very simple,” he says. “If the phone rings from London, you talk to them about the car, you email them photos, videos, all the information. If they buy the car and want it shipped to London, we can assist with logistics – it is all relatively straightforward and easy.

“On the flip side, if you’re sitting in Australia and want to buy a car that’s in London, it is very difficult. You have to deal with issues like asbestos testing before you bring it here, and all of the taxes you pay don’t make it viable. The upshot is that the more expensive the car, the less likely it is to be imported into this country.

“You pay LCT and GST to bring a classic car here. So, if you bought a car in England for $500,000, by the time it was sitting in your garage in Brisbane, it’ll probably owe you $750,000. If you got buyer’s remorse and wanted to sell that car, what’s it worth on the market? Probably $500,000.

“More often, we see people who can afford big money for classic cars keeping them overseas because it does not make commercial sense to import them here. As a result, businesses involved with classic cars – whether it be people that buy and sell them such as us, or people who restore or maintain them – are all missing out.”

CHANGING GEARS

Making a career out of buying, selling, brokering deals for, and enjoying classic sports cars would surely be the dream of many a car enthusiast. Actually being able to make that dream a reality takes a bit of doing.

Like others who find themselves doing a job they love, the road to owning Oldtimer Australia was a long one for Mark.

Born and bred in Perth, he completed an engineering degree at the University of Western Australia before embarking on a career in engineering services, working for an organisation supporting the resources, energy, and infrastructure sectors.

A decades-long career would see Mark climb the corporate ladder and eventually move to Brisbane in 2003, moving into the big chair as CEO at another major, multi-million-dollar-turnover company. But 20-plus years of corporate life left him looking for a seachange and, in 2011, the opportunity arose to buy Oldtimer Australia from its founder Terry Healy and for Mark to combine his nose for business with his passion for cars. It was a career decision that was a lifetime in the making.

“If you ask my mum, she’ll tell you that when I was two-years-old, all I wanted to do was play with little cars,” says Mark with a chuckle. “They have always been something I have been obsessed with.

“In my corporate life, I was fortunate to be part of a very successful organisation, do pretty well, and be able to buy myself a few interesting cars. It has just been with me all my life.”

So much so, that this passion has taken Mark, and some of his own cars, all over the world – to exclusive gatherings of Lamborghini owners in Italy, to week-long excursions with other Maserati owners in Australia, to trophy-winning trips to the US with his Monteverdi 375L. Not only that, his expertise and knowledge has seen him become a member of the advisory board of Motorclassica, Australia’s premiere classic car show and Concours d’Elegance (‘competition of elegance’) which is held in Melbourne in October every year.

It’s little wonder that when the opportunity to get involved with the classic car community on a professional level presented itself, the car enthusiast/businessman in Mark was happy to take that punt on Oldtimer Australia.

“I was thinking about a seachange at the time,” he says. “I had seen a couple of cars that I was looking to buy, with one being about 90 per cent restored and the other maybe 50 per cent restored, and I thought I would buy them, project manage their restoration, sell them, and maybe make a few dollars. It would be a bit of fun.

“I spoke to Terry and asked if he could help me sell those cars,” he adds. “I knew him, albeit not well, and we got to talking. I shared my story about not being sure what I was going to do, about mucking about with these cars and contemplating what life holds beyond that, and he rang me up a week later and said, ‘I have got something to put to you’. We caught up and he said, ‘I am going to America. If you’re looking for a seachange and you like cars, why don’t you buy my business?’

“I was looking for something,” says Mark. “I wasn’t sure what that something was, but that was one of those times when you go ‘What have I got to lose?’. I thought about it, my wife was very encouraging and said go for it. The rest is history.

“And though I do miss my corporate life – the cut and thrust of chasing, winning and executing major contracts – I wouldn’t change things for the world.”
Looking around the Oldtimer Australia showroom, it’s easy to see the appeal of working here every day. However, for Mark at least, it is ultimately about more than the Lamborghinis, the Ferraris, the Jags and the Rollers. Sure, they are fabulous to look at and, no doubt, glorious to drive, but there’s more to it even than that.

“It is about the cars, of course, but it is just as much about the people,” he says. “We have made lifelong friends through the car world, and it is the cars that bring those people together.

“When I bought this business, I thought it might be something I do for two or three years and then go back to the corporate world. However, I love what I do. It is fantastic.”

CLICK HERE to visit the Oldtimer Australia website.

Source: Motor Trader e-Magazine (February 2022) 

8 February 2022