Chris Harris loathes the I-word. He winces every time it’s used with ‘car’.

“Let me qualify this reluctance we have to use the I-word – ‘investment’,” he says. “We’re enthusiasts. But we’re also passionate about this unique platform we’ve built. The moment you start using the ‘investment’ word to potential customers, you skew the conversation.”

“You add a form of expectation that is not for us to support. We can’t decide if the market goes up or down. And maybe there’s an honest British-ness about this, but if the market goes down, it goes down. But if the market goes down and you love your car, you’re still winning.”

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Harris may be an accountant’s worst nightmare, but there’s no denying the wisdom of a man who’s built a stellar career from hooning exotic hypercars, super wagons, hot hatches and Formula 1 cars for countless car shows including the BBC’s Top Gear. Amassing millions of YouTube views as an accidental car influencer is yesterday’s news though.

Today, Harris is busy claiming his own slice of a motoring empire and capturing the riches of a flourishing enthusiast car market online. And if the business’ $1 billion USD (~$1.4 billion AUD) in transaction volume to date is anything to go by, he’s doing a pretty damn good job of it.

Business of car collecting

Harris’ first car was a red Mini Cooper named Sid. Sid moved him in ways that were more than just from point A to B. Sid would sadly meet an untimely death.

“I don’t know how I didn’t write it off. I hit trees, threw it in ditches. And then one day I went to get it. And it wasn’t there. It was stolen and ended up in a bad part of town on its roof and on fire. They stripped all the good parts off – the engine, the exhaust, the Alpine head unit – all of it was gone. Devastated, I was.”

Passing the driver’s test was a life-changing moment for a young Harris. It was his gateway to freedom and a moment he considers right up there with some of his more significant life interactions with humans.

“As a car person, I didn’t have anyone to tell. No one knew my depth of sadness around cars because I was an absolute nerd. So you couldn’t go to your mates to tell them what happened to Sid. You just had to wear it alone. I never named another car after that.” 

What does this all have to do with his current gig at Collecting Cars? It’s a business selling dreams to people who buy on emotions; car tragics like young Harris who’d happily name their cars.

Collecting Cars is one of the UK’s fastest-growing founder-led, privately owned companies headed by CEO, Edward Lovett. Born into the family car sales business, Lovett moved onto private brokerage before finding homes for the world’s most sought-after collector cars. After spotting a gap in the market, Lovett decided to disrupt a 60-year-old business model and in 2019, Collecting Cars was born.

Its goal was simple: Move the collector auction experience entirely online as a free-to-list, free-to-sell service. Harris knew Lovett long before he was the CEO, so it was a seamless transition into the business once he departed the world of automotive journalism. And while Harris’ role is still yet-to-be-named, he is doing the one job that he does best there – creating a car community spanning the entire globe.

The numbers are impressive with the six-year-old auction business boasting over 250,000 registered members across 100 active countries – and counting. Harris’ car influencer status has only exacerbated this growth with 300,000 subscribers to their YouTube channel. Their last Coffee Run event featuring Harris in Sydney attracted over 2,000 enthusiast cars and created one of the most valuable traffic jams ever witnessed on a Saturday morning. 

Reaching that magical US$1 billion mark in transaction volume can’t rely solely on eyeballs and car meets though. Eventually, money must talk.

“It’s a sales business. And I’m a jazz hat out front.”

Chris Harris

“I like being that shiny bit of stuff at the top, but there’s a shedload going on underneath. You’ve got a load of people that know what they’re doing. How to consign the right cars, deal with sales processes, and a tech team building a platform that is faultless,” Harris continued.

The fruits of such labour came about last November when Collecting Cars reached its biggest single transaction to date in a coveted Ferrari F50.

“The auction ran for 10 days and the bidder did his one and only bid with five minutes to go – paid for the car in 24 hours. It was sold from the UK for £3 million – almost $6 million AUD – and it’s now one of the few Ferrari F50s in Australia.”

Harris is hungry to see results in business but happily admits that he’s no business entrepreneur either. He doesn’t need to be since his strength is an amalgamation of his marketing prowess, resourcefulness, and yes – influence.

“I’ve been sitting on a load of 822,000 Instagram followers. So I’ve been thinking for a while now, ‘What do I do with this?’”

Chris Harris

“That’s just a number and it’s meaningless unless you actually weaponise it. I don’t walk into bars feeling better about myself because I’ve got more followers. I want to make money out of that because I don’t want Instagram to have the joy of owning those followers. So we used the following from the very start as an instant marketing resource,” he explains. 

“You can hit your audience for free. Can you imagine what that would’ve cost us 30 years ago to reach three-quarters of a million people who are massive car enthusiasts? Millions of dollars. It cost us zero.”  

Cars you should buy, according to Chris Harris

The fear of reprimand by Chris Harris for using the naughty I-word is real. That’s why terms like ‘future classic’ and ‘bang for buck’ cars are used here instead. What cars would Chris Harris want you to buy today?

“None of that matters, because what I want isn’t what you should want. I believe this passionately. It’s the car that you had on your wall as a kid; it’s your fantasy car.”

“For me personally, that means cars with a manual gearbox and normally aspirated. They are vehicles that will not be repeated again and that have not yet experienced catastrophic price increases. Because once they do that, you’re getting into the fine lines of investment and speculation.

“The beauty of Collecting Cars is all in the grazing, settling down with your whisky and embarking on your own adventure of finding the one.”

Here’s what Chris Harris would have in his own garage (and not yours):

• Porsche 996 GT3 Gen 2: “A slightly forgotten car amongst the RS models and has the best steering of any road car.”
• Porsche 997 GT3 Gen 1: “A proper 3.6-litre car. Again, lost in all the fug of RS models and it must be in Arctic silver with sport seats.”
• BMW M5 Touring E61: “It’s a V10 Touring. What was going on at BMW? Not sure but it will never be made again.”
• Peugeot 205 XS or 205 Rallye: “I like French cars and anything hot hatch.”
• Citroën 2CV: “Their prices are starting to get out of control at the moment.”