• A free estimate before you commit. Send photos and details and we will tell you what we think the car will do at auction. No obligation, no fee.
• No upfront cost. We work on commission, which means we are paid when the car sells.
• Photography and cataloguing. Collector vehicles sell on photographs. Ours are done properly, with the detail shots buyers look for.
• Marketing to real buyers. Our sales reach a worldwide bidder network and an email list of more than 13,000 subscribers who follow what comes through the house.
• The paperwork. Title, transfer, bill of sale. We have handled cars with clean titles and cars with paperwork that needed sorting out first.
• Cars that do not run. A car that has been in a garage since 1994 is still a car people bid on. We take non running vehicles and projects.
• Payment within 35 business days after the sale. That is our standard settlement window.

1. Tell us about the car. Photos, year, make, model, mileage, condition, and whether you have the title and any history. Use the vehicle estimate request form or call us.
2. We give you an estimate. A realistic range for what the car should do at auction, and a recommendation on which sale to place it in. Sales are typically scheduled one to twelve months out, so there is usually room to place a car where it will be seen by the right buyers.
3. We prepare and market it. Photography, catalogue description, and promotion to our bidder network and subscriber list.
4. The car sells and you get paid. We handle the transfer and the paperwork, and settlement follows within 35 business days.

A large share of the cars that come through here arrive with an estate. Someone's father kept a car for thirty years, and now an executor or a trustee has to deal with it alongside a house and everything in it.

Two things are worth knowing if that is your situation.

First, get an independent read on value before you accept an offer. Cars in estates attract people who make a living on the gap between what a family thinks a car is worth and what it is actually worth. A free estimate costs you nothing and tells you whether an offer in front of you is reasonable.

Second, if the estate needs a value for a legal or tax purpose, that is a different document. A formal written appraisal is prepared for the court, the insurer or the tax return. An auction estimate is our opinion of what the car will bring at sale. They are not interchangeable, and if you need the former, our appraisal service handles collector vehicles.

If the car is part of a larger estate, we can usually take the whole thing. Vehicles, contents, art, jewelry, the lot. See estate buyouts if you need it closed quickly, or estate sales if the house needs to be emptied.

Each of the three has a case, and which one is right depends on how much time you have and how unusual the car is.

A private sale gives you full control and no commission. It also gives you the listing, the photographs, the enquiries, the time wasters, the test drives and the risk on payment. For a common car with a broad market, it can work well. For a car that needs the right buyer to find it, you are hoping that buyer happens to be searching that week.

A dealer offer is the fastest route. It is also a wholesale number, because the dealer has to make a margin on the resale. If speed matters more than the last few thousand dollars, that is a reasonable trade.

Consignment to auction puts the car in front of a room of collectors at the same moment and lets them bid against each other. That is where unusual cars do best, because the value of a rare car is set by the two people who want it most, not by an average. It takes longer than a dealer offer and it is not free, but for collector vehicles it is usually where the number lands highest.

For a longer walk through the mechanics, read our complete guide to selling a classic car or vehicle.

Classic, antique and special interest cars, trucks, motorcycles, scooters and boats. Prewar through modern collectibles. Running and non running. Single cars and whole collections.

If you are not sure whether your car is a fit, ask. It costs nothing to find out, and we would rather tell you honestly that a car is better sold another way than to take on something we cannot do well.

We are at 8059 Foothill Blvd in Los Angeles and we sell for clients across Southern California, including Pasadena, Altadena, South Pasadena, San Marino, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Glendale, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood, Brentwood and Pacific Palisades. Bidding is online and worldwide, so where the car is stored matters far less than it used to.

Send us photos and the details and we will come back with a realistic range and a recommendation. No cost and no obligation.

Request an estimate through the vehicle estimate form, call (626) 791-9600, or email info@hughesauctions.com.