Paul Jolly: There's a new auctioneer on the block

Car auctions have changed hugely from the old days of shifty types and dodgy dealers lurking around these places, and there is a surprising new player to this business which you will certainly have heard of.

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In 1946 Royal Navy officer David Wickens decided to sell his Riley Lynx. Placing an advert in the local newspaper, he offered to sell the car to the first person who turned up at his mother's house in Farnham, Surrey with £200. Arriving home late, he found a crowd of eager buyers, and so auctioned the car off for £420. 

David then founded the auction company which became British Car Auctions. It went on an aggressive acquisition spree swallowing up smaller auction firms throughout the UK. 

These auctions have also smartened themselves up and no longer can you march in with bundles of cash. All Trade only purchasers and vendors are vetted and recorded with full money laundering processes.

The pace of a sale is unbelievable with a car going through the ‘ring’ every 30-50 seconds and the auctioneer babble or ‘chant’ is quite incomprehensible and frankly, most bizarre. A bad habit picked up from the Americans!

All sales are on line and there is no physical auction as such.

Bidders have to watch the screens intensely and be very careful what they are bidding on. Prior research of each lot is essential.

The new kid on the block?  It is webuyanycar.com and you will have seen the TV adverts I am sure. They have local agents in every town. You enter your car details online to get a bid which is understandably disappointing and the actual final offer even more depressing once they see the car, but the system works.

The valuations are determined from the vast amount of data available from the auction houses. So where do these cars all end up? Well they go to British Car Auctions of course. How come, you ask?

Because BCA owns webuyanycar.com and needs constant feeding as it’s very hungry!  Over 20% of the 22000 vehicles sold each week comes from this source.