How the market figures are made
Every figure on Vertar’s market pages comes from one place: the listings on UK specialist dealers’ own websites, read by Vertar every few hours. Nothing is estimated, and a figure whose sample is too small or that fails a check isn’t shown at all.
Sources
The stock of 247 UK specialist dealers (the full list), read from their own websites. Vertar has recorded every car listed and every asking price since 7 April 2026: 10,296 cars so far, and 1,221 price changes. Only performance and prestige cars count; a dealer that has asked to be left out is left out of every figure, past and present.
What “for sale” and “sold” mean
For sale means listed on the dealer’s website that day, at its asking price. Sold means the car left the dealer’s stock: it stopped being listed, or the dealer marked it sold. We never see the price a car sold for, so we never say “sold for” or “valued at”: a sold car’s price is its asking price when last seen. Cars that were already on a dealer’s sold page the first time we looked aren’t counted.
Days to sell runs from the day we first saw a car listed to the day it left, so it only uses cars we saw arrive: those already in stock when we started reading a dealer could have been for sale for any length of time before that.
A price cut is a lower asking price on the same car. Corrections of a misread price don’t count, and a cut of 30% or more counts only once a person has checked it.
Every figure and the sample it needs
Each figure is worked out every morning for the whole market, every make, every model and every version, and kept for good. It is shown only when its sample is at least the minimum here.
| Figure | Minimum sample | Worked out for |
|---|---|---|
| Cars for sale | 1 cars for sale | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Dealers with one for sale | 1 cars for sale | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Total asking value | 3 cars with an asking price | Market, Make, Model |
| Median asking price | 3 cars with an asking price | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Cheapest | 2 cars with an asking price | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Most expensive | 2 cars with an asking price | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Asking prices, last 30 days | 10 cars compared like for like | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Asking prices, last 90 days | 10 cars compared like for like | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Median days to sell | 5 cars sold in the last 180 days whose arrival we saw | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Sold in the last 30 days | 3 cars for sale or sold in the window | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Sold in the last 90 days | 3 cars for sale or sold in the window | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| New this week | 20 cars for sale | Market, Make |
| Sold this week | 20 cars for sale | Market, Make |
| Price cuts this week | 20 cars for sale | Market, Make |
| Share with a price cut | 10 cars with an asking price | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Average price cut | 5 cars for sale with a cut | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Median mileage | 5 cars for sale with a mileage | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Median days for sale so far | 5 cars for sale whose arrival we saw | Market, Make, Model, Version |
| Manual premium | 5 cars on each side, same version and years | Model |
| Median price per bhp | 5 cars with an asking price and a factory bhp figure | Model, Version |
| Cheapest horsepower | 20 cars with an asking price and a factory bhp figure | Market, Make |
| Models with only one for sale | 10 models for sale | Market, Make |
| What £50,000 buys | 10 cars with an asking price | Market |
| What £100,000 buys | 10 cars with an asking price | Market |
| What £250,000 buys | 10 cars with an asking price | Market |
| Fastest-selling model | 3 models with 5 or more sold | Market, Make |
| Slowest-selling model | 3 models with 5 or more sold | Market, Make |
Medians are the middle value. The price trend is like for like, as the Index is: cars are grouped by version and five-year band, and each group’s median asking price now is compared with its median 30 or 90 days ago, only at the dealers we were already reading then. So a change in what’s in stock, or a new dealer, can’t pass for a price move. The manual premium compares manual and automatic cars of the same version, built within the same five years, in groups with at least two of each; cars whose version isn’t known are left out. Price per bhp uses the factory power figure.
Checks before anything is published
- Sample minimums, above.
- Suspect cars. A car asking under £1,000 or over £25m, under a tenth or over 10 times the median of its version (with 5 or more for sale: a dropped or extra digit), or showing over 300,000 miles, is probably a misread. The figures it would affect (the total, the cheapest, the most expensive) are held until a person checks the car.
- Jumps. If the market or a make’s count, dealers, total value or median moves more than 10% (cars for sale), 15% (dealers with one for sale), 12% (total asking value), 10% (median asking price) in a day (on samples of 20 or more), it’s held unless a dealer joining or leaving explains it. A dealer’s website failing to read can look like a market crash; that is exactly what this catches.
What fails waits for a person, who passes it or drops it. A figure that doesn’t pass isn’t shown; there is no estimate in its place.
The Vertar Index
One number a month for the whole UK specialist market, and for each model with enough cars: how asking prices moved, like for like. It is a stratified median, chain-linked monthly.
- Each month, every car for sale at any point in it counts once, at its asking price at the end of the month (or when last seen, if it sold).
- Cars are grouped like for like: the same make, model and version, built within the same five years.
- For each group with at least two cars in both this month and the last, we take the change in its median asking price, counting only the dealers we were already reading last month (a dealer joining isn’t a price move).
- The month’s move is the weighted geometric mean of those changes, each group weighted by its average size over the two months.
- The Index is 100 in its first month and each month multiplies the last by its move. Published months are never revised.
Why this way: grouping like for like means a month with more supercars in stock doesn’t look like rising prices; medians mean one odd car can’t move a group; chaining month to month uses the cars actually on sale, and needs no valuation or guess at what a car would fetch. It measures asking prices, not sale prices.
Minimums: the market Index needs 100 cars in 10 or more matched groups; a model’s needs 20 cars in 2 or more groups. A month that falls short is left blank. A move of more than 5% in a month (market) or 10% (a model) waits for a person before it’s published.
Known limits
- Asking prices, never sale prices. A car can sell for less than it asked, or more.
- Only the dealers Vertar reads. A specialist we don’t track, a private sale or an auction isn’t in any figure.
- “Sold” is “left stock”: a car moved to another dealer, withdrawn or sold privately looks the same.
- Dealers joined at different times, so figures for the first months rest on fewer dealers. Days to sell only uses cars we saw arrive.
- Make, model and version come from the dealer’s own listing, read by software and tidied to one spelling; a mislabelled car can land in the wrong group.
Using the figures
Quote any figure with its date and “Source: Vertar”, linking to the page it’s on where you can. Each figure on the market pages comes with a sentence written to be quoted as it is.
Change log
- 10 November 2026: Daily statistics with their checks, the market and make pages, the hub market panels and the Vertar Index (first published for October 2026, history from April 2026).
- 1 October 2026: First monthly market report.
- 7 April 2026: Vertar starts recording every listing and every asking price change at the dealers it tracks.