Q & A with leading classic car specialist Peter Wallman

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Published: 28 February 2013

He's one of the world's leading car specialists and is especially knowledgeable on cars from the '50s and '60s. He previously spent nearly two decades in the international advertising industry, based out of New York, London and Milan. It was in Milan that he gained experience buying and selling collector cars, learning to speak fluent Italian in the process.

RM Auction's Peter Wallman, 45, speaks to Danny Hewitt on his career, the future of car collecting and celebrity influence on cars.

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Peter Wallman gets the opportunity to drive some of the world's rarest and most beautifully crafted cars. Picture: RM Auctions.
How did you find yourself becoming a car specialist at RM Auctions?

It's always been a hobby. I used to work in the advertising industry but I've always enjoyed old cars and I've always owned old cars. I've restored a couple myself and I've had a 1961 Jaguar E-Type for 24 years now. I started representing an auction house when I was working and living in Italy and I joined RM Auctions when they started back in 2007 in Europe.

What inspired you to buy the Jaguar E-Type?

It's a car that I've enjoyed ever since I was a child and I saw them on the street and always wanted to own one.

What difficulties do you face when trying to find specialist parts to repair really old classic cars like that?

I think the market's very mature and there are ways of getting almost any part for almost any car today and because they made Jaguars in quite large numbers it's very easy to source replacement parts for them. You can probably have something arrive in a parcel within 24 hours, for most minor and major parts for a car. Everything is remanufactured now.

Paul McCartney's former Aston Martin was up for auction and sold for over £300,000 as expected. Can you tell us more about what makes the car particularly special?

Aston Martin DB5s are special because of the James Bond connection and I don't think there are many young men, or even older men, out there who don't in some way aspire to some sort of James Bond connection. They're beautiful cars. They're a joy to drive. They're very easy to run and use on an almost every day basis. They're comfortable, fun, fast and extremely beautiful. And I think they made just under 900 DB5 Coupes and there's always going to be a number of Aston Martin DB5s on the market at any one time. But when you find one that has such an interesting provenance as having been owned by a former Beatle in period - owning it for some six years - then it makes that car very individual.

It's cool enough to be able to park outside a restaurant or a bar in a DB5 but then when you go inside and can actually tell somebody that it was Paul McCartney's old car, then you have something unique and you've not only got a great car but also a fun story to tell.

So I think any car with a good celebrity provenance is always going to be an exciting thing to own, buy and also to sell. And it's great at auction because really it's very, very difficult to value how much that provenance will add to the car, so an auction will find the answer.

How influential do you think perceived legendary links such as that with Paul McCartney or other big celebrities or figures are in adding value to a car from your experience?

It depends on who the celebrity is and if they're extremely famous in the music industry like Paul McCartney or any of the Beatles would be but also it's nice when the celebrity has a particular affection for cars and arguably the most famous for that and adding value would be Steve McQueen.

Steve McQueen raced cars. He had a huge passion for cars. He's owned many of the nicest cars in the world and as a good example, we sold the Porsche 911 which was used in the opening sequences of the famous '70s film Le Mans. Steve McQueen drove it in that film.

We sold it at auction last year and it made at least ten times what it would have been worth just as a car. It sold for over $1m. That's just a Porsche 911.

So celebrity provenance can make a huge difference to the value of a car but it's never really our place to predict how much because it's got to be the market that decides and not the auction house. We try to consign cars like that as close as possible to their value without the celebrity provenance and then we allow the auction and the market to decide how much extra it's worth.

How do you manage to go about finding so many cars of such rare beauty to go up for auction?

Next to selling, that's probably the hardest part of the job. The hardest part is to find people that firstly want to sell and secondly want to sell at auction.

An auction is the best way to find out how much an object is worth for sure because that's a true valuation. It's on the open market. It's very well advertised. RM Auctions is very famous in the auction world so people come to us, asking us advice on how best to sell their cars, but also we're very proactive and we go out there looking. We go out there knocking on doors, making phone calls and saying to people 'look, you know, if you ever want to sell your car, please do give us a call. I'm sure we can help'. So it's a question of being very proactive and good marketing and advertising.

Where do you see car collecting developing from 2012?

I think more and more young people will get involved. I think as people use their cars less for practical means of transport, they will start to think more about what they own for enjoyment. So it's almost going back to weekend driving. While you may use public transport, a bicycle or a scooter during the week to commute, more people are looking forward to driving at the weekends. You do it for pleasure so I believe people will think 'well, if it's just for pleasure it doesn't need to be that practical'.

I think the quality of the events that are around the classic car scene are getting better all the time. More and more people attend them with their partners because they are more enjoyable and are sexier today than they perhaps have ever been so people are quite happy to come along with their wives or their girlfriends and women enjoy the event as much as the men today.

That means the market is essentially growing and we hope it continues to.

Is that what you think helps set RM Auctions apart from other auction houses - the glamour that you put into each event?

We deliberately make it glamorous and fun and exciting. We want people to have a good time. You're buying something that ultimately is a very expensive toy. It's part of a hobby so purchasing it should be a fun experience for them, not a tedious one. We want to make sure that people have a glass of champagne and that it's a nice social event and they enjoy coming to the auction. And if they enjoy being in there then hopefully they're more likely to spend some money.

What would you say are the most challenging and rewarding parts of your job?

I think the most challenging part of the job would be finding cars at the right price and then meeting peoples' sometimes overambitious expectations.

The most rewarding part is when a car sells for more than everybody expects and everybody's delighted, including the buyer. But also, another rewarding part in addition to that is having the chance to meet the owners of some of the most famous cars in the world and occasionally having the opportunity to drive these cars and learn more about them. This is a job where you never stop learning.

I've met famous racing drivers, important businessmen, TV and radio stars, all of whom share the passion and it's a great door opener talking to such people. You get the opportunity to meet very important people and share their passion with them over lunch.

Where do you expect most of the buyers to come from for UK-based auctions?

I think one of the strengths of RM Auctions is that we have offices in Europe and in North America but there's a seamless link between our American-based clients and our European-based clients. And when you're operating at the top end of the market and dealing in multi-million pound cars, you need to be sure that it's global. It's not just about the UK, America or Europe. It's global. There could be a buyer in India, Hong Kong or South America.

The buyers of these cars are all over the world. When you're dealing at the top level, and we have great strengths in Europe of speaking many languages, and we work very hard to make sure we're seen as a European office as opposed to a UK office.

In your opinion, when many of these buyers acquire an expensive or rare classic cars and motorcycles, is it simply to keep in a garage or to take out on the open road?

They use them. I think that's one of the many reasons people buy cars. Today, because of the events available to collectors, people buy cars with a specific purpose in mind. There will be collectors that have a car that they can do the London to Brighton run in, they'll have a car that they can perhaps show in Pebble Beach and they might have a car that they can race at the circuit. And maybe then something they could use for weekend driving.

More and more, as the market place is quite mature now and the facilities for restoration and keeping the cars on the road and making in some cases, minor modifications to make them more reliable - less likely to overheat, less likely to have a flat battery and modernise the brakes to the standard of today's traffic - they're more driveable today than they've ever been.

That also goes for things such as rust treatment. Today, you rarely see a rusty classic car. That sort of thing has been all but eliminated out of the hobby. Collectors restore to very high standards and they stay at that high standard for much longer.

How has the internet had an impact on RM Auctions?

It's an interesting question because the internet makes the business even more international than it is. You can have people bidding from all over the world on the internet. It also means that people come to the auction better informed. They do their own research.

However, it doesn't mean that everything available on the internet is either accurate or correct so sometimes people can read negative things that aren't necessarily correct or accurate. It allows people to get a better feel of what they should be spending because they can find comparable auction results, cars for sale privately or through dealers and discover how much they should be spending. So I think it's a great research tool.

They come to the auction better informed. The internet has positive and negative impacts. Whereas perhaps once collectors were more heavily reliant on experts, now they have more information at their fingertips to do their own research.

Where do you see RM Auctions going in the future?

We're always looking at new markets and broadening our reach. We really want to continue improving the quality of our auctions and continue to have sales where we're selling at least 90 per cent of what we're offering because it means we're doing our job properly. It means we're getting cars at the right price. We're making sure that we're marketing them properly and that the buyers for them are getting to hear about it.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I like to maintain my Jaguar E-Type and get my hands dirty. I travel a lot. I like to participate in different sports from tennis to skiing. I go to quite a lot of historic motor racing events.

Whilst this is a job, it is also very much a hobby and it can very much be seven days a week. Whilst we may be in the office during the week we may be at a race meeting at Spa, Goodwood or the Nurburgring at the weekend socialising with our clients.

What is the most memorable moment of this journey?

Having the opportunity to drive a Ferrari 250 GTO. It's considered the absolute best Ferrari road racing car. It is understandably one of the most valuable cars in the world.

Dream car?

There are too many to choose from. It's a typical conversation over a beer and we all have our 'Top 5', 'Top 10' and 'Top 20' lists which are constantly changing and evolving. But we continue to dream.