Future values

A difference of 40K miles will make a difference in value, but I doubt it will matter more than a few thousand. A 3.2 coupe is a good car to buy and drive without worrying much about depreciation. If, for some reason, A Mondy coupe became the Ferrari to have, it would matter much more but what are the odds of that?

Dave

 

Funny, "Low Mile Classics" was the topic of my last "Sound Classics" newspaper column.

In the world of Ferraris, it seems 30,000 miles is the cutoff for "low miles." The value premium tends to be highest sub-15,000, then slowly decline until 30,000. Personally, I'd rather have a higher miles car, because it has proven to be a reliable driver. (And I have a 85K 328.)

 

1st. You can sell anything for the right price
2nd. It's much better to have an F car with high milage that's been use and maintained regulrly than to have a low milage car even if it's been maintained IMO.
3rd. even though the Mondy is not the Ferrari to have, no matter how you look at it it's still a FERRARI not to mention it has a 3.2

 

I agree. I currently have a 79 GT4, and while I can't see myself getting rid of it soon, my next Ferrari (whenever that may be) will most likely be a 3.2 Coupe. I'll want a back seat, and I'm drawn to the reliability of the 3.2 motor. Between the 308 and the 328, I'll take a 308 based on styling. Everything else is in the 328's favor, so I parlay that into the Mondial 3.2 Coupe and figure I've got the best of both worlds - seating for 4 and a reliable drivetrain.

Coupe trim is my preference, but given I do live in CA where the weather is decent 11 out of 12 months (or so) out of the year, maybe a cab will be the way to go when the time comes. Who knows... What I *do* know, however, is that if your car were on the market with 80k (ish) miles, presented well cosmetically, and it passed a PPI with flying colors, I'd have no problems whatsoever offering full-asking price.

Don't save your car for the next guy - get out there and DRIVE the thing!!!

 

Personally I like the GT4 and the 3.2 coupe and as far as motor is concern you can't go wrong with either a 308QV or a 3.2

 

Don't save your car for the next guy - get out there and DRIVE the thing!!![/QUOTE]


Exactly!

 

Exactly![/QUOTE]

+1

 

A ferrari is nothing but an expense.

Land, stocks, SEP, Roth IRA, cash, securities, options, dollar cost averaging, dividends etc. These are the words used in the language of investments.

Having said that i think the 308 will end up in the louvre some day.

In 30 years they will be closer to the classic Ferraris in price. Made to many of em' to be in the millions though.

IMO.

 

Maybe. But without any real numbers of the survivors, we have no real guess as to what is left in existence.

As I have commented in other threads, these cars were for many years being totally neglected and destroyed. Playboys and boogerwads would latch on to them and drive the snot out of them without any care or maintenence, and soon they were rotting away, getting smashed, and catching fire. Thats provided the motor hadnt blown up first. I seen 308s 20 years ago being sold in Hemmings with blown motors, and by the late 90's eBay was crowded with them. Its slowed down alot now, but you still see some real piles pop up on eBay that just cant be put back on the road today. Now even 328's are showing up on eBay is deplorable condition.

The fact is is that the 90's were hard on these cars. The price dropped to its lowest I would guess about 96-98 and remained low, and because so many had never been serviced, they just started getting scrapped and cut up. And the insurance companies havnt helped matters. Write offs were, and still are very common. When I visited TR in 2001, they had two pretty nice GTs's in that they were stripping and going to cut up. Both drove in. They had a pile of holed engine blocks and gear boxes, at least 30, maybe close to 40, and each car they represented had been cut up. Many of you no doubt are running parts on your car today thanks to those cars being sacrificed.

If they cut up four per month, and DM did the same, as well as Hooper, and a handful of others, and you extrapolated that out over the last 15 years, thats a lot of cars. But thats obviously to many, as 10 places times 4 cars/month times 12 months times 15 years is 7200 cars. But we dont have any idea what was happening in Europe, Oz, Britain, etc., etc..

I guess the point is that there could be rediculously few 308's left running.

 

Very good point, and this is the case with most of the six-figure cars going at Barrett-Jackson! Certainly there were more big block Corvettes, Chevelles, Mopars than Ferrari 3X8s. (There were 12,547 427 Vettes in 1968 alone -- 2,898 427/435hp cars alone!!!)

Keep in mind that what makes a car collectable and valuable is not usually rarity on its own. If rarity trumped, then the '64 Buick Skylark would be worth more than its '64 Pontiac GTO platform-mate and the ultra-luxurious (and expensive when new) '55 Packard 400 coupe would be valued way more than the plentiful '55 Bel Air.

The primary ingredients are style, performance, desirability when new AND nostalgia-factor when older. As I've mentioned many times in my collector car column: it's tough to be nostaglic about a car you never saw.

The 308/328 series will be very desirable, because not only did the enthusiasts read about them, but also the common folks saw them (and drooled) when they passed on the city streets. Testarossas will also be desirable. Magnum PI and Miami Vice also deserve some thanks!

Like Hemis, 427/454 Corvettes and Boss Mustangs, Ferrari 308s were driven very hard. Many were wrecked, more had their engines grenade. This plays well into the future values.

 

All good points.

Still though even if only 3000 of the 12000 or so 308s made are still around in 25 years and all were restored i doub't you'd find 3000 people willing to pay the kind of money their getting for a 166 or a '59 testarossa etc.

The thing about the Camaro/classic Mopar thing that's goin on now is gonna reverse soon IMO as the age range in the demographic is very narrow. Go to the auctions and the Goodguys car shows and the Carlisle and Hershey PA. shows and its all 55-70 year old white guys with beards sporting a power gut undearneath the Hawaiian shirt with little pictures of woodys all over it. As those people retire and shed off their cars the younger and more ethnic groups just don't have the same interest in those cars.

The thing that i like about he 308 is that it's a beautiful and timeless design that still has the young high school girls coming out of the Starbucks and Mcdonalds and into the parking lot to see a 308 parked there. In driving one yesterday i noticed the group of Mexicans working on the side of the road took notice of the car the same way the black guys working on the gate outside the condo did.

When the stigma of the car and how it relates in a positive way to things like the Magnum show fades along with the negative associations of cheesy gold chain 80's excess, all that is left is the car itself.

To me it's the best looking car ever made. I wasn't joking about it being in the louvre. I think that will keep it very desireable over the years and the prices will go up but it maybe a few decades until it's a several hundred thousand or more dollar car and even with the loss of many of the cars and the fact that rarity alone isn't the only factor in value it's still enough of a factor to keep the car out of the several million dollar range in years to come.

 

No doubt that the 166 and '59 TRs will always be more expensive than the 308s/328s. The question is not whether people will pay $2M per car, but more like $150K per car. This would still put it in the blue-chip collectable category.


I do happen to disagree that the Camaro/Classic Mopar trend will reverse. Unless something completely unprecedented happens, the values will simply flatten, like they did on Classics, Model Ts, Model As and Brass-Era cars. People said that as the owners of Brass and Classics died out, the value of these cars would plummet. In actuality, there has been a resurgence of Brass cars as the best of these cars have hit the market again. The people who own Classics have driven the cost of the best Brass cars up. Mercer Raceabouts, Simplex, Stutz, Stanleys are all as hot as they've ever been.

The same will happen with the muscle/pony cars. As the 50-somethings who are buying these cars hit 80-90, the 30-somethings will buy them up, due to the perceived importance of them, just like the 50-somethings are also buying Duesenbergs, Caddy V16s, Cords etc...from the estates of people of the older generation.

With the exception of Model Ts, I can't think of any one single large collector car trend that had a huge value pullback. Of course, this doesn't include the drop in the entire classic market in the late 80s, which was more of a correction.

 

My opinion is the Mopar/ Pony cars are being bid up by the Americans that use to own/dream about them growing up. In addition, these cars were affordable to middle class people when they were new and most N. Americans can relate to them because they were everywhere. Conversely, the vintage Ferrari crowd is not uniquely American, it's mostly European so it would make sense that older collectible Ferrari's would bring the biggest interest and potential dollars in that part of the world. Lastly, Ferrari's could only be purchased by the higher income earner. Ferrari was a toy not a car to be driven to work every day.

 

I agree. Some of my worst car experiences were with low mileage cars. Rotting gaskets, leak like a waterfall after a couple of weeks of regular driving, etc.