Auctions for cars
worth arguing about.
Empora is an online auction house for the kind of thing you would cross the country to own. We are starting with collector and enthusiast cars.
How an auction works
A person reviews every car before it appears here. After that, the format is plain enough to explain in one breath.
The seller submits
Photographs, ownership history, service records, and the known faults. We read through what comes in and usually ask for more pictures before anything is published.
Bidding opens
For a fixed number of days, set before it starts. Bids and questions are public, and the seller answers in the open. A bid in the closing minutes extends the clock.
The two of you talk
Above reserve, we introduce buyer and seller directly and hand over what they need to close. Transport quotes come with the listing, so the cost of moving the car is known before bidding starts.
Where the name comes from
Ancient Greek had more than one word for a market. The agora was the town square, where you bought from neighbours you would see again next week. An emporion was the trading post at the port, where merchants who had sailed in from somewhere else did business with people they had never met.
We took the name from the second one, because it is the harder problem. The longer version is on the about page.
Get the letter
We write about the collector car market. What is selling, what it went for, and what we make of it. It goes out when we have something worth your time, and subscribers hear first when Empora opens to the public.