Hagerty Says the Jaguar XK 150 Fell 19% in a Quarter. Bring a Trailer Shows Where the Money Went

Jaguar XK 150 values fell by an average of 19% in Hagerty’s October price-guide update, the steepest drop on the five-car “shedding value” list the company published on October 14. That figure is verified. What it does not tell a collector is which XK 150s fell, and a year of Bring a Trailer results shows the answer is less tidy than “coupes down, convertibles steady.”

The thesis here is narrow: the XK 150 market is dividing by body style and price tier, and the evidence for a clean, durable slide is not in yet. Our verdict is inconclusive, with a softer bias for the fixed-head coupe.

What Hagerty reported (verified)

In the October 14 report, Hagerty Media’s Greg Ingold described a market running at two speeds: fast for modern supercars, slower for older, established enthusiast cars. The 1957–61 XK 150 shows an average decrease of 19% for the quarter, calculated across all conditions, using guide values that went live at the start of October. Hagerty says the coupes bore the brunt, with driver-quality (#3) examples of the sportier S-specification coupes slipping below $50,000, while the drophead coupes were little changed.

Hagerty also points to the buyer base. Its insurance-quote data show baby boomers account for 60% of XK 150 quotes, against 25% for millennials and Gen X combined, which it reads as enthusiast attention moving toward more modern performance cars. The same report put the Dodge Challenger Demon down 18%, a move we examined in our Demon 170 analysis, while Hagerty’s earlier update from the same quarter had the other side of the split, covered in our look at the 997.2 GT3’s 64% gain.

Production context: nearly half are coupes (verified)

Published production totals for the XK 150 show 9,382 cars built between 1957 and 1960: 4,445 fixed-head coupes, 2,672 drophead coupes and 2,265 roadsters. The fixed-head is about 47% of all XK 150s ever built; the roadster is about 24%. The S models, with triple SU carburettors, were rated at 250 hp in 3.4-litre form from 1958 and 265 hp in 3.8-litre form from 1959. Published totals do not break out S production separately.

Jaguar XK 150 values at auction: twelve months of Bring a Trailer results

Bring a Trailer recorded 24 completed XK 150 auctions between October 16, 2025 and September 23, 2026: 12 sold and 12 ended below reserve. Three cars were offered twice in that window, so the 24 results represent 21 cars. This is one platform and a self-selected set of cars, so it can test Hagerty’s pattern but cannot reproduce a quarterly percentage. Sold results, by body style:

*Bring a Trailer’s result box and bid history record this sale at $40,000; the page title lists $35,000. We use the recorded sale price.

Six fixed-head coupes sold between $19,500 (a project car) and $40,000, a median of $32,000, and none cleared $40,000. Every open car sold for at least $61,000 (or €62,500 for the French-market drophead), and the three highest results of the year were the S convertible, the S roadster and a 3.4-litre roadster at $85,000 to $118,500. In that sense the body-style split Hagerty describes is plain in the price levels. Bring a Trailer had no S-specification coupe result in the window, so Hagerty’s specific figure for those cars cannot be tested here.

The sell-through numbers complicate the open-car story. Eight of 14 open-car auctions closed below reserve: six of nine dropheads and two of five roadsters or S convertibles, with high bids of $84,250 on a 1961 3.8-litre drophead and $66,500 on a 1960 3.4-litre car. Four of ten coupe auctions also failed to sell, with high bids between $34,000 and $62,000. Two cars did better on a second attempt: the 1960 3.8-litre drophead was bid to $61,000 on July 31 and then sold for $68,000 at no reserve on September 8, and the 1958 coupe with the rebuilt 3.8-litre engine went from a $34,000 high bid on October 16, 2025 to $39,000 at no reserve two weeks later.

The same cars, years apart (verified)

Bring a Trailer’s own histories allow a longer comparison for three chassis. A high bid below reserve is not a sale, and condition and sellers’ expectations may have changed, so treat these as markers rather than proof.

Market interpretation: what the evidence supports

Everything below is our reading, not a verified fact. The auction record supports Hagerty’s split in level: the cheapest open car cost more than the dearest coupe. It does not clearly support the idea that dropheads were little changed at the transaction level. Six of nine drophead auctions missed reserve, and the one drophead with an earlier Bring a Trailer sale drew a final bid about 39% below its 2021 price. The coupe histories point the same way, though that is only two cars. A guide value is a model across all conditions; an auction result is one car on one day.

On supply and demand, a plausible but unproven explanation is that coupes make up nearly half of production, so more of them are available to a buyer pool that Hagerty says skews older. The top of the open-car market, where the S and roadster results landed, looks like the part that cleared, but it is three sales. A buyer weighing a coupe against alternatives may want to read our British sports-car comparison, and anyone pricing a specific car should start with documentation; our guide to the Jaguar Heritage Certificate explains what it settles on a matching-numbers question. One of the coupes that sold at $39,000 carried a rebuilt 3.8-litre engine, according to its listing.

Sustainable, temporary or inconclusive?

Inconclusive, with a softening bias for fixed-head coupes. Verified: Hagerty’s guide values for the XK 150 fell 19% for the quarter; coupes sold far below open cars; and most open-car auctions ended below reserve. Not established: that the decline continues, that dropheads are insulated from it, or that Bring a Trailer’s results speak for the whole market. For comparison, our W123 wagon market move showed how one headline sale can overstate a trend; the XK 150 problem runs the other way, where one headline index may hide a split. The next quarterly guide update and whether the $85,000-plus S and roadster results repeat are the two things worth watching. None of this is a prediction or investment advice.

Sources

Hagerty Media, “5 Vehicles Shedding Value in a Lopsided Market,” Greg Ingold, October 14, 2026; Bring a Trailer, Jaguar XK150 auction results and listing histories, reviewed October 27, 2026; Jaguar XK150 production and specification summary (Wikipedia). Photo credits are in each image caption.