PERUGIA – The Car & Classic portal, the most important eCommerce site for historic cars in Europe, has an Umbrian heart. Its founder, Tom Wood, moved from London to the Foligno area four years ago where he lives with his wife and two children to whom he has given Italian names, easily pronounceable even in English. Because with a double passport, Tom now considers himself Italian and Umbrian, proud to have chosen the Green Heart to organize a business that has paved the way for the sales of vintage four-wheelers through online auctions, also hosting thousands of advertisements, over 8 thousand the “Italian” ones. His weeks pass between a flight to London and a ride in a vintage car through the Umbrian countryside, from a video call to pruning the olive trees on his estate.
Doctor Wood, why did you choose to live in the Umbrian countryside?
«My father-in-law is originally from a town near Foligno. I saw the house where I now live ten years ago and for an Englishman it is a dream, an ancient structure on a hill with fields around it. At the time I said, “I’ll buy it one day.” Three years ago I sold a business in England and was able to buy this estate. For me Umbria is a perfect area.”
In what sense?
«I’ll give you an example. I lived in London for ten years and the food in the supermarket is always the same, in every season while here you can eat locally sourced and it’s natural. On our estate we produce olive oil, eggs: it’s a special dimension.”
What are the advantages and disadvantages of working here?
«I find Umbria to be a good compromise. I always make a comparison with Cornwall which is a seven hour drive from London, it remains as isolated and unspoiled as it was years ago. Umbria is a bit like that. For our sector there is a lot of work in northern Italy and in the rest of Europe, which is why I find the airport very functional, with the daily flight to London from May to September, but I also hope for the high-speed train to stop. Everything will change, it will have an important economic impact with fast connections to Rome and Milan.”
How do you spend your days when you’re at home?
«I work from my office where I hold or follow meetings on Zoom and I must say that the internet connection (via satellite) is excellent. But it often happens that, after working all day between one video call and another, in the afternoon he takes the chainsaw and goes to prune the olive trees. It’s beautiful”.
With Car & Classic he created a segment within the segment.
«Selling historic cars through online auctions was an unknown area but other sectors, watches, antiques or paintings, were already doing it. For cars this boundary had not yet been crossed and we were lucky: for five years Car & Classic has been the largest site in Europe. There are other portals that sell all types of cars, new and historic, but we are specialists in collector’s and vintage cars. It is difficult to do this activity while also dealing with modern cars: I am first of all an enthusiast and in the company (about one hundred people, ed.) we all are, from the secretary to the manager. In Italy there is the culture of the car and for this reason we often organize rallies and this year we are also sponsors of the tricolor circuit of the Italian historic Auto motoclub (Asi) which organizes the Coppa della Perugina in Umbria”.
Where is the company’s registered office?
«It is still in London but we are building an office in the Italian area which guarantees around 8% of the auctions. We want to expand this activity, which sees us as leaders in France, Holland and Germany, here too. We are thinking of opening a place in Umbria where I think we have found perfect conditions: it would have sustainable costs and the environment is excellent. The idea is to create an exhibition hall for cars to grow the business physically too given that at the moment we are above all “digital”. A company of this type does not necessarily need physical space, but a reference center can help the company grow.”
Would it be an exhibition space?
«I’m also thinking of a sort of car photography set. For the auctions we go personally with our freelance photographers (all Umbrian) to see the machine and the documentation in order to then describe everything in 1500 words. We currently have around 1000 auctions and all of them are personally verified. A showroom in Umbria would be a reference for all of Italy, convenient for photographing cars to be put up for sale, rationalizing and speeding up the work of photographers who would no longer have to go to the seller. We would like to open branches like this throughout Europe: it would be a way to reduce sales costs.”
How does the sale via online auction take place?
«The difference compared to traditional ones is that the car stays with the seller, it doesn’t have to be “sent” to be viewed. Huge shipping costs are avoided because if the deal doesn’t go through, the machine would then have to be returned to base. With our system we send the interested buyer a hundred shots of the car taken by our group of freelance photographers.”
How many sales can you organise?
We currently have around a thousand active auctions, all personally verified. Every month we manage to have around 40 thousand adverts which are also verified one by one with an “old school” system which involves exchanging a code with the seller who then has to place it on the windshield of the car and if someone tries to “photoshop” it we understand it . There is also a cross-verification system of the seller’s address with the identity document.”
How is the payment structured?
«We use the Escrow system through which a third party, in this case us, retains the sum paid by the buyer until the negotiation has been concluded positively. This applies to auctions but can also be adopted for advertisements. The initial verification of the seller and the guarantee of payment are decisive in this activity.”
What movement is there in Umbria regarding historic cars?
«In Perugia and the surrounding area alone there are 5-6 important vintage car dealers who have placed advertisements on our site. Of the adverts present, 8 thousand come from Italy, 70% of which are traders who also use the online auction: it gives the certainty of selling within a week. However, the platform is also accessible to private individuals. Even when I travel around Umbria, people stop me because they connect the car to a film, to a certain historical period or to family events. I think of historic cars as works of art to be valued and celebrated.”
There are also those who denigrate them because they are polluting.
«If we look at how far they travel, on average they don’t exceed 400 km per year. You don’t go to work every day with a classic car, it’s something for an anniversary on Sunday and in my opinion this is only good. It is a purely male hobby but there is also growing interest from women and real networks of friendship and exchange are born around this passion.”
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