12-02-2025
Bring a Trailer's European Expansion Was a Natural Step
Randy Nonnenberg, co-founder and current president of Bring a Trailer, will be the first to tell you that eBay was his original auctioneering fix — at least until his creation was born. Follow that thread for 18 years, and Bring a Trailer has become the premiere auction website not just for low-mileage Bimmers and niche Saabs, but for those seeking to maximize their return on investment from rare, quirky, or just plain clean pre-owned vehicles across the spectra of ages, brands, and styles.
But while that opportunity for enthusiasts to find the cars they really want has been limited to North America, our gearhead friends across the Atlantic in Europe are equally as invested in finding quality metal. Hence, it was only natural that Nonnenberg and the team at Bring a Trailer — which, like Road & Track, is part of the Hearst Autos group — set their sights on crossing the pond in 2024. Now, with three partner locations spread across the European Union, Bring a Trailer is ready to operate in Europe as if it had always been there. at
"We have had a lot of sort of grassroots fans of BaT in Europe for a long time, some of them bidding on cars. So I would get a lot of questions of, 'When are you coming to Europe?'" Nonnenberg told Road & Track. "And we just wanted to do that intentionally, in a way that our tech was built out for it, and our team was ready to support it. And we are there now in a substantial way, and ready to grow even more,"
The site's three partner locations span from the Netherlands down to Belgium and across to Germany. BaT's Netherlands partner, Image Street Classics, was established last summer and offers the storytelling, imagery, and auction logistics expertise that the auction site has become famous for. Then came 1600veloce, BaT's central European partner — and perhaps its most geographically important — in January of this year. Centered between Frankfurt and Hamburg, 1600veloce's position makes the cross-continent shipment of cars easier than ever, allowing cars from around Europe to be more readily vetted, photographed, and prepped for auction. BaT's Belgium bureau, Colombo & Co, is its most recent addition, serving as a port-side hub to ship the best and most bizarre cars Europe has to offer Stateside.
But not every auction success story ends in the U.S. Around 50% of cars auctioned off in Europe stay in Europe, making 1600veloce and its Germanic location a prime cross-country headquarters. (Just look at the Schipol to Dublin success story of this 1959 Mercedes-Benz 220s cabriolet.) The rules haven't changed much, Nonnenberg explained, as European buyers can bid on U.S. auctions and vice versa — but the intra-European sales mix is becoming an increasingly important part of BaT's year-end report.
"We're not going to do just one in each country, but we're kind of starting there so we can get a footprint and spread it out. What those partners do is give us capability on the ground — local language spoken and local contacts — the ability to navigate the local market without us having to go set up offices all over Europe to try to do it sort of top-down," Nonnenberg said. "We're doing it sort of on a community level, enthusiast level, and from the bottom up, which is a little different, but gives us sort of a local European flavor to it. As opposed to a bunch of us coming from over here to go try to solve the way of selling in the market."
The listing and buying processes remain largely the same for Bring a Trailer users in Europe. Selling your car on the site comes with a custom-written listing, a seven-day auction, and the choice to add professional photography for a few hundred dollars extra. (Nonnenberg admitted that the system of dispatching photographers across the country isn't quite set up for European operations, but that isn't far off.) Bid amounts will be translated into the currency of location, and value-added tax is calculated and tacked on for applicable transactions. Pricing is on par with the American version, too; EU listers pay the typical $99 listing fee in the form of €99, while U.K. sellers pay £79. Buyers fees stay at 5%, with a maximum of €7,500 in Europe and £6,000 in the U.K.
The biggest change to BaT's operational layout from its expansion appears on its website: prospective European buyers can filter auctions by region, including European Union and United Kingdom filters. There are even more granular search options once inside of the EU or U.K., allowing for nationality- and era-tailored listings. These filters aren't exactly new, but the ability to show off Euro-market listings is one Nonnenberg is particularly excited about, and it's one that builds on the community-oriented principles BaT was founded on. With the site's bounty of regular commenters and a strong sense of community underneath every listing, Euro enthusiasts are now better represented than ever — no matter their car-buying affinities.
"Some people think that Europeans just drive, you know, European marquees from their own country or something. But there are Italian car fans everywhere, and there are American car fans everywhere. And there are even Japanese cars getting shipped around and all over the place. So it's a diverse group," Nonnenberg said. "And that means a lot of need for the ability to transact the way that BaT does — which is transparent, and with low fees, and in a helpful way."
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