Auction and Dealer Car Transport

Prompt collection after the hammer

Salerooms release a lot only once payment has cleared and the buyer, or an authorised agent, presents the correct collection note or gate pass. Storage charges begin to accrue quickly, and a car left standing on an auction site is exposed to weather, movement around it and the occasional careless neighbour. Prompt, properly documented collection is therefore the first thing that separates a smooth trade purchase from an expensive one.

We collect against the saleroom's own process: confirming the release authority, the lot and chassis details, and where the keys, service history and V5C or registration paperwork are held. Auction cars are frequently unknown quantities — a classic that has not run for years, a low supercar with awkward approach angles, or a genuine non-runner sold as seen. Our crew loads cars they have never driven every week, using soft straps over the tyres rather than the bodywork and a low-angle bed for cars with minimal ground clearance, so nothing is risked in the first ten minutes of ownership.

Because SKORTA runs a single dedicated movement, we are not waiting to fill a transporter before we set off. That flexibility matters most when a storage clock is running or an onward buyer is expecting the car.

Discreet delivery to your showroom or the buyer

For a dealer, delivery is part of the sale. A car arriving on the back of a shared transporter, road-filmed and shuffled behind three other vehicles, undermines the retail presentation you have paid for. We deliver door to door to your showroom, storage or a preparation bay, timed to your day rather than a run's schedule, so the car is ready to photograph, prep or hand over on arrival.

We also deliver directly to your customer on your behalf. Many traders prefer the buyer never sees the logistics — only an unmarked, single-vehicle arrival and a car presented properly at the kerb. Discretion here is practical as well as reputational: we do not announce what we are carrying, and a private address is not visited by a conspicuous multi-car rig. Where trade plates or specific timed access are involved, tell us in advance and we will work to it.

This retail-grade care is the same standard we apply across our prestige car transport work, whether the car is a fresh auction purchase or long-held stock being moved between sites.

Handling high-value stock and the condition report

Auction cars are usually sold as seen, with the saleroom's description and the buyer's own inspection the only record of condition at the point of sale. That makes what happens next unusually important: any mark noticed after collection is contested territory unless there is clear evidence of when it appeared. A signed, photographic condition report taken at collection and again at delivery gives both buyer and seller an honest, timestamped baseline, so a transit dispute becomes a matter of record rather than argument.

The report captures the car's panels, wheels, interior and any pre-existing damage from the sale, with the crew and the receiving party signing off at each end. It is a genuinely useful document for the trade — for the dealer proving stock arrived clean, for the private buyer taking delivery of a car they may not have inspected in person, and for anyone who needs to close out a purchase cleanly.

• Enclosed trailer — a sealed, weatherproof, out-of-sight movement (Brian-James-RT7 style) for supercars, classics, freshly detailed stock and anything travelling in poor weather or over long distances, protected from stone chips, salt and prying eyes.
• Open aluminium tilt-bed — a lighter, well-priced option for shorter legs, robust stock or where speed and cost matter more than concealment.

Where you are moving a single exceptional car, our single-car transport approach means it never shares a deck and never changes hands mid-journey.

Flexible European legs, handled by one crew

Trade does not stop at Dover. Auction stock is bought in the UK for buyers in France, Monaco, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the Benelux countries, and cars are sourced abroad for UK showrooms. We take the car across the Channel ourselves — via the Dover to Calais crossing and onward — so the same crew that collected it also delivers it, with no depot handover or sub-contractor in the middle of an international movement.

Cross-border transport since Brexit carries real paperwork. A CMR consignment note accompanies the goods, customs formalities and transit documentation apply at the frontier, and cars moving temporarily — to a concours or a show, for example — may involve temporary admission arrangements rather than a permanent export. These are the practical realities of moving high-value stock through Europe; we will talk you through what a specific route needs and confirm the details before collection. Where a customs agent, exporter of record or specific document is required for your consignment, that responsibility sits with the parties to the sale — we carry the car and its paperwork correctly, not act as your customs broker unless agreed. [CUSTOMS BROKERAGE ARRANGEMENTS TO CONFIRM]

One crew, one movement — why the trade chooses it

The value of a car should not be diluted by the way it travels. On a shared load the car is one of several, loaded and unloaded around others, sometimes moved between drivers or depots, with accountability spread thin across a chain of hands. SKORTA does the opposite: one dedicated movement, one crew end to end, no depots, no changing hands and no sub-contracting. If you need to know where a car is, there is one crew to ask, and one point of responsibility from collection to delivery.

For dealers running stock, buyers collecting a win, or collectors adding to a garage, that clean chain of custody is the quiet advantage — fewer touchpoints, less exposure, and a car that arrives as a considered delivery rather than a drop-off. Pricing depends on the route, the trailer and the timing, and is always confirmed in a written quotation by the crew before collection. For a realistic sense of cost on your lane, get an indicative estimate and we will follow up with a fixed figure.