TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -

In anticipation of five major collector car auction houses expecting gross sales of more than $230 million, Hagerty rolled out a new complementary Web service to help collectors better understand the marketplace.

Hagerty, an insurance agency for collector vehicles and host to a large network of collector car owners, explained it launched the tool, Collector Car Portfolio, to augment its other solutions, Value Your Car and Market Trends.

Officials highlighted this project involved more than five years of research by Hagerty’s team of valuation experts. They recapped what each tool is geared to do:

—Collector Car Portfolio: A collector can create a portfolio containing their vehicles or their dream garage, and the tool can organize a chart showing how the group and the individual units have performed during the past. The tool also can enable the user to track a portfolio against the value performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, gold and NASDAQ markets.

—Value Your Car: Users can input the year, make and model of a classic vehicle, and the site generates a chart showing its current value and five-year trend.

—Market Trends: This tool can display the value of several Hagerty-created classic car indices and can assist collectors in deciding when to buy, sell or hold from different genres of classics.

“Our goal with Collector Car Portfolio is to provide a one-stop-shop valuation center for classic car enthusiasts,” stated McKeel Hagerty, chief executive officer of Hagerty Insurance.

“Whether you’re at an auction trying to better understand the value of a potential addition to your collection or at home determining the performance of your portfolio versus the Dow, this tool is built to be a resource for collectors,” Hagerty added.

And that upcoming event expected to generate sales more than $230 million? It’s coming up this weekend in Monterey, Calif. Hagerty plans to offer exclusive media access to daily auction results and the value trends that may result at www.hagerty.com/2011MontereyAuctionResults.