| Welcome to Bw Daily, the Bloomberg Businessweek newsletter, where we'll bring you interesting voices, great reporting and the magazine's usual charm every weekday. Let us know what you think by emailing our editor here! If this has been forwarded to you, click here to sign up. And here it is … You might not have given much thought to what's happening in the classic car market, but you're also not a man named McKeel Hagerty. He runs a Michigan-based insurance company—and, more recently, is trying to single-handedly run the classic car market because, in his opinion, it's in deep trouble. As Bloomberg Pursuits' Hannah Elliott details, with on-the-ground reporting from the recent Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance, a classic car extravaganza in Florida (known as "the Amelia"), Hagerty's rescue mission has been going on for years now. "I really wanna see it last long term, but I don't think that's a given," he told Elliott.  The gathering known as "the Amelia." Photographer: Sergio Fernandez for Bloomberg Businessweek What does it mean to buy up a whole market? Well, Hagerty has been transforming his modest insurance business. From the story: In the past two years it tried to trade in its humble image for something much more audacious—that of a conglomerate that owns every aspect of the collectible car universe, including auctions, brand experiences, data, events, logistics, media and storage. It's acquired half a dozen major car events nationwide, such as the intimate Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance in Florida and the exclusive California Mille rally.
 Hagerty. Photographer: Sergio Fernandez for Bloomberg Businessweek But that's not all! Hagerty has bought tech companies, including one called Speed Digital, and runs an online classifieds market with 753,000 paying members. It publishes not one but two magazines (Hagerty Drivers Club, a bimonthly, and Radius, a quarterly distributed to top collectors). And it's not just digital products: Hagerty owns car storage clubs in eight US cities.  A Porsche at the Amelia classic car show. Photographer: Sergio Fernandez for Bloomberg Businessweek Hagerty sees threats from many areas, but they're mostly tied to technology: As the world gets more enamored with EVs and autonomous driving, the number of people who, say, can fix a manual transmission or want to gather with other fans of an obscure vintage model are in danger of decline.  Taking a blue ribbon Rolls-Royce for a spin. Photographer: Sergio Fernandez for Bloomberg Businessweek That fear isn't necessarily born out by the facts. "Last year online auction platform Bring a Trailer—half of whose users are 44 or younger, according to a company spokesperson—reported a record $1.3 billion in sales of classic cars," writes Elliott. Auction house Bonhams reports that younger buyers are snapping up some of the most expensive classic cars.  Auction of a 1979 Porsche 911 SC Alméras Frères "Eminence" Rally Tribute at the Amelia. Photographer: Sergio Fernandez for Bloomberg Businessweek You'll have to spend time with the whole story to understand how one man's passion project went this far. His role in the classic car market has its fair share of detractors, who point to the monopoly on data—tightly protected by the wealthy patrons of such valuable machines—as a big issue. "They're setting the values, they're having the auctions," one former employee said. "They have an online marketplace and now online auctions, and they're telling people what to pay for stuff, telling people what to buy next." —Reyhan Harmanci, Businessweek | 
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