A classic car is worth roughly what comparable cars have recently sold for at auction, adjusted for the ways it differs from them, and not what a condition grade or an asking price suggests.
That sentence does most of the work. The rest of this entry explains what counts as a comparable sale, why the median for a model is not the number you should bid, and where to find the sold figures for the cars BidBetter covers.
Start with sales, not adjectives
Condition words feel precise and are not. "Excellent", "driver" and "concours" mean different things to every seller, and none of them carries a price on its own.
A sold result does. It records what one buyer paid for one car on one day, in public, with other bidders present.
So the first question is not "what condition is my car in". It is "which completed sales describe a car like mine".
What counts as a comparable
A comparable is a completed sale of the same model and generation, close in specification, recent enough that the market has not moved underneath it.
Inside a generation, body style, engine, transmission and originality usually matter more than the model year. A numbers-matching coupe and a restomod wearing the same badge are not comparables for each other.
Asking prices are not comparables. Neither are auctions where the reserve was not met. The high bid on those is a number the seller turned down, not a price.
The median describes the market
The median is the middle sale: half of the cars sold for more, half for less. It is the most honest single description of what a generation of cars brings, because a handful of extreme results cannot drag it around.
As of 1 November 2026, BidBetter's cleaned medians from completed US-dollar auction sales read as follows.
- Ford Mustang 1964-1973: median $41,200 across 4,093 sales; the middle half sold between $25,350 and $70,057.
- Porsche 911 1974-1989: median $63,000 across 3,323 sales; middle half $45,750–$90,500.
- Chevrolet Corvette C2 1963-1967: median $88,000 across 2,487 sales; middle half $64,000–$140,400.
- Chevrolet Corvette C3 1968-1982: median $27,500 across 2,251 sales; middle half $18,000–$40,700.
- Ford Bronco 1966-1977: median $66,000 across 1,843 sales; middle half $46,200–$101,750.
The full list of models, including pages added since this entry, is at /value/models.
Why not the average
An average is pulled upward by the few very expensive cars in any set. In the uncleaned auction records for 1974-1989 Porsche 911s, 3,371 sold results as of 1 November 2026, the average sale was $86,550 and the median was $63,000.
The gap is not a mystery. The single highest result in that set was $4,295,000, for a 1976 Porsche 935 race car sold by Gooding & Company in August 2024. It is a 911 by family and nothing like a Carrera by market. One car of that kind moves an average and leaves a median alone.
A median is not a bid target
The median describes the generation. It does not describe your car.
Look at the bands above. A quarter of C2 Corvettes sold for less than $64,000 and a quarter sold for more than $140,400. A car can sit at either end of that and still be a perfectly ordinary example of what it is.
A bid target is a different number. A BidBetter report identifies the specific car, its year, specification, mileage and title, and compares it with completed sales of comparable cars. Those sales are adjusted for mileage, specification and how recently they sold. The report returns a bid target, a tight band around it, the wider realistic range, and the sales it was built from.
The median tells you where the market sits. The bid target tells you where this car sits inside it.
Method
The figures in this entry come from completed auction results only. Asking prices, reserve-not-met results, withdrawn lots, unsold cars and non-vehicle lots such as parts and literature are excluded. Sales not made in US dollars are excluded, so the figures describe the dollar market. Duplicates are removed, and implausibly low or extremely high results are set aside rather than allowed to move the median.
Each value page prints its own method section with its sample, date range and sources. The 911 page's is a good example: how the 911 figures are built.
The average-versus-median comparison above uses the uncleaned records, which is the point of the comparison.
What to do with your car
Find its generation at /value/models. Read the band, not only the median.
Then place your car in the band with facts rather than adjectives: whether the drivetrain is original, what documentation exists, the mileage and whether it can be proven, the specification, and the title.
If you are about to buy or sell, run a report on the specific car and read the sales it used. If you need a figure for insurance, an estate or a lender, that is a job for a qualified appraiser. A BidBetter number is an estimate from comparable sales, not an appraisal, and no estimate decides what a car will bring on the day.
Blog entries are general information, not financial, legal or purchasing advice. BidBetter figures are estimates, not appraisals. See the Disclaimer.